Dr. Brinkley's Tower

by Robert Hough

  Francisco did as he was told, his eyes widening with surprise. — Dios mío, he exclaimed.

  — Exactamente! Now, exactly what do you smell?

  Francisco sniffed again and thought hard. — Straw, he said. — And avocado.

  — Cómo no? said the cantina owner.

  — And cactus blossoms.

  — Anything else?

  — Mesquite, suggested Francisco’s father. — And oregano.

  — And creosote, said the cantina owner. — With a whiff of cilantro.

  — And one other thing, said Francisco’s father, taking another deep sniff. — Something I can’t quite place.

  — Sí, said Francisco. — I smell it too.

  — May I give you gentlemen a hint?

  — I think you might have to, Carlos.

  — Perhaps a little … dulce de leche?

  — Sí! father and son exclaimed simultaneously. — Dulce de leche!

  All three lifted their glasses, taking the most reverential of sips. For Francisco, the taste was as gentle as the cool, woodsy breezes that follow a Coahuilan downpour … breezes that, for a short time, make you forget that México is a place of dust and hot weather.

  — Mijo, said the cantina owner, contentedly twiddling his moustache. — Do you like it?

  — Sí, said Francisco. — I do.

  — Of course you do. It is the taste of México, captured in a glass.

  Father and son stayed in the cantina for a good long time, and several more rounds of tequila. This was unfortunate. After the elating effect of the first two tequilas began to wane, Francisco Senior, hardly a drinker by nature, made an age-old mistake: he attempted to resurrect it with a third tequila, and then a fourth. By the time they were midway through their fifth, Francisco’s father had begun to pine terribly for his wife. Songs she’d liked began running through his head, and he imagined he could smell her perfume mixed in with the other smells in the bar.

  But the more affected was Francisco Junior, who was beginning to make an elementary discovery about amor. Just because you may understand why you love a person doesn’t make that love any less potent. If anything, insight only strengthens the infatuation, as it gives it shape, a reason for being, and proof of its existence. It was a little like seeing a phantasm for the first time: what used to be an ephemeral belief is transformed into fact. He began to recall the feel of Violeta’s lips on his own, and the way his heart thrummed every time he was in her presence. Simultaneously the room began to rotate, inspiring a turbulence in his stomach that was not at all pleasant.

  Francisco excused himself. Walking unsteadily, he went outside and found a path to the desert behind the cantina, where the sound of his retching soon mixed with the whir of car engines. It was a Saturday night, and even as Francisco lost the birthday meal he hadn’t wanted in the first place, gringos were streaming across the narrow bridge between nations, following the brilliant green corona as determinedly as bees in a quest for honey.

  One of these was a Texan named Edward Phillips, who had driven over that night in a Chevrolet the size of a small yacht. He had undergone the Compound Operation four days earlier and was eager to test the efficacy of the procedure. Following a team of grubby-faced children to the House of Gentlemanly Pleasures, he left his vehicle in the car park that Madam now operated in a stretch of desert west of the radio tower. He tipped the children, paused to admire the green hues rippling through the sky, and joined the lineup of men leading to the brothel’s door. In the queue, Edward Phillips steadied his nerves by drinking cans of Moctezuma beer, purchased from a campesino who referred to him as meester.

  Finally he gained entrance to Madam Félix’s infamous bordello. He was shown to the waiting room, where he drank a pair of tequilas in quick succession and smoked an above-average Cohiba. He was then invited to the room of Maria del Alma, who attended to him in such a way that his fingertips blazed and his heart palpitated and his mind erupted with colour. After, he was shown back to the waiting room, where he decided to toast the success of the Compound Operation with another tequila. With his blood thus enriched, he asked for another go, and was ushered this time to the chamber of Maria de la Noche, who introduced him to pleasures so profoundly diabolical he decided, in mid-act no less, to devote the rest of his life to hedonistic pursuits.

  This was no small moment in the life of Edward Phillips. Until that moment he had made his living as a small-town pastor, and had dedicated his life to a certain austerity of the flesh. To celebrate his decision to spend eternity in hell, he elected to enjoy yet another tequila before getting behind the wheel of his car, his level of inebriation such that he forgot to turn on his headlights. He swerved through the darkened streets of Corazón de la Fuente, his side mirror casually glancing against adobe facings. After a minute or two he realized that he was lost. He responded by using the Lord’s name in vain, laughing giddily at his own heresy, and speeding up. In so doing, he unwittingly cruised away from the bridge leading to his own country, instead of towards it. This mistake inspired a small degree of panic.

  By the time he reached the plaza containing the Pozo de Confesiones, he was moving at forty-five miles per hour. Furthermore, he was still badly distracted by thoughts of carnality and sin and the new life he had pledged to pursue. Or, failing that, he figured he would indulge his newly debauched self whenever he was on Mexican soil, a strategy employed by legions of family men who had confessed their sins to him over the years. Edward Phillips chortled. If you can’t beat ’em, he thought, you might as well join ’em, for truth be told there were things about his life on the other side that he wouldn’t mind hanging on to, foremost among them being his wife’s peach melba, decent golf courses, and the shining faces of his children.

  Unfortunately, he was so preoccupied by the theological debate now raging within him (asceticism versus experience; contemplative pleasures versus pleasures of the flesh; knowledge of things godly versus a surrender to things earthly) that he didn’t notice that a thin young girl with a twisting of metal in her mouth was, at that exact moment, stepping into the lane in front of him. He also didn’t know that her name was Laura Velasquez, that she was engaged to an eighty-eight-year-old molinero named Roberto Pántelas, or that she’d decided that a walk might take her mind off the fiddle music ceaselessly transmitting through her braces. As his headlights were off, he also couldn’t see that the poor girl was caressing both temples, and had entered the sort of dismayed, self-contained world often caused by low-grade suffering. He did, however, spot her at the very last moment, her face lit by fear, her hands held aloft in useless defence, at which point he was upon her.

  There was a scream, though what followed was far more chilling — the sudden cessation of that scream. Phillips, wanting only to escape the Mexican police, sped away. Those within earshot came running from their homes dressed in night-clothes and slippers. Among them was the molinero, who, given the slowness with which he moved, was among the last to reach the scene. But once he did, the crowd parted to let him through. He approached his beloved and slowly worked his way to his knees. He embraced her rag-doll body. Upon hearing her attempt to speak, he put his ear to her mouth.

  — Mi amor, she whispered. — Forgive me.

  — Forgive you? he whispered.

  — I should have been more careful …

  Laura took a final, shuddering breath and, in that weighted moment, quit the terrain of the living. The molinero opened his mouth to moan, his anguish preventing the issuance of sound. Tears flowed from his old eyes, forming twin streams over snow-white stubble, until one rolled off his chin and landed on Laura’s reddening blouse. He buried his face in her neck, his rickety spine arched against chambray. Oh, my Laurita, he finally managed, not you. Not you, not you not you not you.

  His words came in the same rhythm as the rocking of his body, a sight so disturbingly sad that many of the onlookers began to weep themselves, for they all understood that they had just witnessed the termination of not
one life, but two.

  { 24 }

  TWO DAYS LATER, FRANCISCO AWOKE IN HIS SHARED bedroom. The last residue of his hangover was finally gone, his distress now emotional rather than physical. He dressed in the same formal outfit in which he’d first visited Malfil Cruz, and he ate breakfast with his father and grandmother, both of whom were also dressed for Laura Velasquez’s funeral. They ate in silence, the only sound the scraping of cutlery against metal plates.

  When they were finished with their hotcakes, Francisco’s father said to his son: — Would you like me to come with you?

  — No, papi.

  — Pues … if you need any help, just come and get me.

  Francisco pulled his hat over his eyes and stepped into the laneway fronting his house. As he walked towards the molinero’s, he watched the homeless arise, stretch, kiss their children awake, and make low twig fires. The streets were redolent with the smell of tortilla and burning wood. Chatter spilled from doors opened to the day’s rising heat, the topic of conversation always the same: the tower had taken the life of Laura Velasquez.

  Francisco was just approaching the town’s smaller plaza when he heard an odd sound. He stopped, listened carefully, and heard it again: it was a little like the noise made by air escaping from a punctured tire. This time, the sound persisted long enough that he was able to identify the direction from which it came. He turned and faced the darkened entranceway of a small home that had been abandoned during the revolution and left to become the domicile of a family of bats.

  Pssst he heard yet again.

  The curandera, looking as wrinkled as an avocado left too long in the sun, was standing on a doorstep messy with guano and sawdust. She was perhaps five feet tall, had unclipped hairs sprouting from her chin, and wore a Kickapoo amulet around her neck. She was peering at Francisco so unnaturally that he instinctively started, even though he considered the rumours regarding the woman’s satanic abilities to be the fodder of nitwits.

  He cleared his throat. — Hola, señora, he said.

  The curandera coughed and continued to peer at Francisco through the eye not entirely coated in a milky film. — You’re Francisco Ramirez.

  — I am, he answered.

  — That’s good, she croaked. — That’s good.

  — What’s good, señora?

  — I was hoping it would be someone I could trust. I was hoping it would be someone who could get the job done.

  Francisco was surprised to find that his heart was beating irregularly and that his palms suddenly felt clammy, as though he had just wrapped them around a length of cool pipe.

  — I promise you, he said. — I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.

  She chortled, revealing peggy, yellowing teeth separated by dark spaces.

  — You, she said. — It’s going to be you. Yesterday I saw your face. Lifting in the smoke of my fire. That’s how I knew. That’s how I know.

  Francisco swallowed dryly and struggled to contain his breathing.

  — You’re speaking in riddles, señora. And I can’t say I like it.

  The old woman said nothing, preferring to gaze at Francisco with a delight that seemed mildly fiendish. Finally, she cleared her throat and spat so forcefully into the street that a puff of dust rose towards her shins.

  — Good day, Francisco Ramirez. You know where to find me.

  She ducked into the gloom of the ruined house, melting into the shadow of its interior. A second after that, he could hear only the flapping of bat wings and his own speeding thoughts.

  Francisco straightened and continued walking towards the house of the molinero. He forced himself to chuckle. Clearly, the old woman was unbalanced, and capable of only the most deluded gibberish. A moment later his mirth evaporated and a chill ran through him. He remembered that on the day when Radio XER had gone on the air, the curandera had stepped forward and proclaimed that this Dr. Brinkley was a fraud, and would harm the town. Though Francisco had jeered along with everyone else, it was also true that the fleetest of thoughts had run through his mind. It had been an uncomfortable thought, and Francisco had naturally chased it away before it could take root and spur action. Yet now, walking towards his heartbroken old friend, that thought returned to him. This time it refused to be banished so easily.

  The old woman knows something.

  Combatting the onset of a headache, Francisco Ramirez reached the plazita containing the old well. The confusion caused by the curandera’s appearance was replaced by anger. He shook his head in disgust. Broken bottles were strewn around the plazita, and the gutters were clogged with every sort of refuse. A spent and razored brassiere hung from a denuded palo verde. Worse, the Pozo de Confesiones was now clearly being used as a toilet by those living rough on the streets, such that its clammy depths could no longer offer succour to those feeling guilty in thought or action.

  He knocked on the molinero’s wood-plank door. When there was no answer, he checked to see if the door was unlocked. He walked in and found the old man seated, shirtless, on the edge of his bed. Francisco’s first observation was how slight the molinero had grown with age; Francisco was old enough to remember the days when Roberto Pántelas, still in his seventies, had been as big around the chest as the hacendero. Now Francisco could count each one of the molinero’s ribs, protruding through papery, bluish skin. With each breath, the old man wheezed.

  Francisco sat beside his ancient friend, the straw mattress rustling and growing thin beneath his weight. He waited, saying nothing, wishing to touch the molinero but not feeling it was his place. The only thing he could give the molinero on this terrible morning was his nearness.

  —Joven, the old man finally said, his voice so weak that Francisco had to struggle to hear it.

  — Sí?

  — Why is it that you and I are such close amigos, do you think?

  — I don’t know.

  — I do. You have an old soul, whereas I am simply old. This gives us a lot to talk about.

  Under any other circumstances, Francisco would have chuckled.

  — Señor Pántelas, if you are feeling poorly I can tell the others that you …

  — No, said the molinero. — No.

  Francisco helped comb the old man’s hair. He helped him brush his teeth with baking soda, and he applied a polish made from beeswax and lard to his creased leather boots. As he did so, Francisco felt a crushing sadness for his old compadre. Overnight, it seemed, grief had caused the years to catch up with the molinero, rendering him shaky and weak. Francisco went to the molinero’s closet, which was neatly arranged, thanks to Laura, and pulled out a suit for him to wear. It was only when he was helping the molinero button his shirt that he noticed the hard, veinless lump in the middle of his chest.

  — Señor, said Francisco. — What is that?

  — It’s nothing, the old man answered with an exhausted wave. — I’ve had it for years. Besides, who cares anyway? Now let’s go.

  Francisco held the old man’s forearm as they walked along Avenida Hidalgo towards the town cemetery, which had the distinction of being the burial place of the infant grand-niece of Venustíano Carranza, the revolution’s second interim president — her little coffin, it was said, had been no bigger than a hat box. They walked along a dusty path that wound through the gravestones, the molinero growing shakier and shakier as they approached the newly dug grave.

  Francisco refused to let go of him, saying: — It’s all right, my old friend. If you fall I will catch you.

  Much of the town had turned out, the mourners including the mayor, the hacendero, and the hirsute store owner, Fajardo Jimenez. The cantina owner and his wife were there as well, though those with keen powers of observation noted that a tension seemed to have re-arisen between the two, for the couple were neither speaking nor holding hands. Meanwhile, the victim’s parents were learning of the savage, incoherent pain caused by outliving one’s child.

  The molinero too was beginning to look as though he’d been t
ransported to a world of eternal punishment. His eyes, having drained themselves a hundred times over in the past thirty-six hours, refused to produce tears, causing them to redden and burn. He began to tremble and to whimper piteously. Francisco firmed his grip on the old man’s arm. The hacendero saw this and came over to take the other arm. In this way the molinero managed to remain on his feet.

  Malfil and Violeta Cruz were there as well, though Francisco forced himself not to look in Violeta’s direction, for fear that his anger and frustration might choose that inopportune moment to erupt. Madam Félix, meanwhile, looked resplendent in Castilian funeral garb — even her unused handkerchief was fashioned from black cotton lace. All of the Marias were in attendance as well, none crying more vociferously than Maria del Mampo, whose prominent larynx bobbed like a yo-yo as she wept. The curandera stood far off, beneath the speckled shade of a mesquite tree; there she muttered to herself while performing some sort of twisting motion with a handful of fireweed. Francisco commanded himself not to look in her direction either, as he was still feeling unnerved by their encounter.

  They all waited. From somewhere nearby, the signal of Brinkley’s damnable radio station could be heard, and they all knew that silencing it would involve far more than searching for whatever radio had been accidentally left on. There were a few uncomfortable coughs, and above, the wafting of vultures. The spear-like shadow thrown by the radio tower mocked them.

  When the citizens of Corazón de la Fuente heard boot steps they looked up, thankful that Father Alvarez, after much pleading by the village faithful, had agreed to preside over Laura’s funeral. He was, however, still dressed in secular garb, his hands notably — some would say bitterly — free of Bible, cross, or rosary.

  The sky was bleached white. There was a dry, unpleasant wind. The whole world smelled of corn husks and wood. The Father’s voice wavered with a sorrow not in any way feigned.

  — Ashes to ashes, polvo al polvo …

  As Alvarez spoke, the hacendero kept taking quick, flitting glances at Madam Félix. Even in mourning, he thought, she was as proud and noble as any woman he had ever known. Life is so, so short, he thought. I’ve been a fool to have kept my feelings a secret for so long. He lowered his eyes to Laura Velasquez’s grave; the poor girl was in a closed plank coffin with a cross carved into the top. Though her death was tragic, it was a sobering reality that every person here would one day share Laurita’s fate. The only difference would be in the details.