Dr. Brinkley's Tower

by Robert Hough

  The hacendero returned his attention to the outdoor service, which was coming to a close.

  — And so we say to you, O Lord, may your child Laura Velasquez slumber in peace, for she sleeps in the eternal grace of your kingdom.

  There was a long, melancholy pause, during which the circular nature of life became, for just a few moments, poignant and obvious. After a while four campesinos appeared with rusting shovels, which they used to shovel dirt into the grave. When the first clod of dirt hit Laura’s casket, her mother wailed and fell to her knees, clawing the earth like a madwoman. After a few minutes, a few local women, including the cantina owner’s wife, pulled her away.

  Just then the mayor, the cantina owner, and Father Alvarez moved into the hacendero’s field of vision.

  — We’re going for a drink, said the cantina owner. — You will join us?

  — Maybe. I don’t know.

  They nodded and grimly walked off. Malfil and Violeta Cruz drifted back towards the town, though they did so with a noticeable distance between them. The molinero stood at the edge of the newly filled grave, his lower lip trembling, refusing to let Francisco Ramirez take him home. Seeing this, the hacendero felt his heart thud with both the wonder and the pain that come from being alive. He turned and noticed that Madam Félix was still in attendance. The hacendero filled his lungs and, in full view of those left, walked up to his amor.

  — Hello, señora.

  — Señor Garcia, she said, with practised formality.

  — I was wondering if I may have the pleasure of escorting you back to your place of business.

  The ensuing silence was total. The town’s crows stopped cawing, the wind stopped rustling branches, the cries of Laura Velasquez’s mother were muted. Madam peered up at him, amazed by this public proposal. — Claro que sí, she said in a quavering voice.

  The hacendero held out his arm and she took it. He then walked with her along the path connecting the cemetery with the rest of the town.

  — I have missed you, he said. — With everything that’s been going on, I’ve been too busy to visit.

  — I’ve missed you too. How is Diamante?

  — I hired the Reyes brothers to replace his metal fence with one made of wood. It’s about as straight as a drunkard’s path but at least it’s built. Time will tell. I am hopeful. I have to be.

  — It’s all so sad. Poor Laura.

  — Poor molinero.

  They reached Avenida Hidalgo. Heads turned, though not as many as once would have — there were so many newcomers who knew nothing of the not-so-secret history between the town’s hacendero and the town’s brothel owner. Again the hacendero felt stupid. Imagine, hiding his feelings for all these years. And why? Madam’s profession? His reputation as an aristocrat? Ay, cabrón, he thought. This isn’t España. Here, different things matter. Here, different rules apply.

  He could feel the warmth of her hand transmit into his elbow. They reached Avenida de Cinco de Mayo, where the lineup to the House of Gentlemanly Pleasures was already halfway down the block. Madam unlocked the rear door and led the hacendero to her boudoir, where they made the sort of slow, gentle amor that arises only from the experience of sorrow — while not deliriously pleasurable, it leaves in its wake a gratifying comfort, and a strengthening of one’s ability to tolerate the immense profundity that is life. They both lay on their backs and lit thin, fragrant cigarillos. Coils of blue-green smoke drifted towards the ceiling. A long time passed, during which they linked fingers and felt tired.

  Finally the hacendero spoke. — I was talking to Miguel before the funeral. He assured me he’s going to speak to the gringo tomorrow.

  Madam took a long, luxurious puff. — Which gringo?

  — Well, Brinkley, of course.

  — Brinkley? The mayor’s going to talk to Brinkley?

  — Sí.

  The madam lifted herself to her elbows and then turned on her side. The hacendero continued to lie in a state of half-sleep, his eyes closed, his breathing heavy. For a moment she said nothing, instead admiring the handsomeness of his features — those high cheekbones, that prominent jawline, his long, boyish lashes. She ran a finger over his lips, causing him to smile gently.

  — Hmmm, she said. — I told him not to. I’ll have to remind him.

  The hacendero’s eyes slowly opened and he looked dreamily at the woman who was no longer his secret love.

  — It’s funny, he said, — but I thought I heard you just say that you were going to stop the mayor from talking to Brinkley.

  Her voice was still smoky with the delight caused by the intimacy between a man and a woman. — I did say that, silly.

  The hacendero raised himself to his elbows, bringing him to the same level as Madam. As she played with the thicket of hair on his chest, he looked at her, not quite understanding what he was hearing.

  — Mi amor, you have to agree that the tower has to go. You have to agree that this was the last straw.

  She stopped running her fingertip over the hacendero’s chest, and a slight sharpness invaded her voice. — Has to go? I have five more Marias coming in from the countryside. That’s five more campesino families who are depending on me. I need that station, to create more customers.

  — You want more customers?

  — Of course I do. I am in business. Why wouldn’t I?

  The hacendero blinked and felt his mouth turn dry. — I’d just assumed, given what happened to Laura Valasquez, that you’d changed your mind.

  — Well, I’m afraid you assumed wrong, guapo.

  — But even you can see the changes that have come to this town.

  Madam sat up straight. — I see some growing pains that the mayor, if he wasn’t so ineffectual, could deal with easily. And what, by the way, do you mean by even you? Eh, hacendero?

  — I simply meant that …

  — Oh no, out with it, cabrón. What exactly did you mean?

  The hacendero noticed that he was breathing hard and that the sides of his face felt warm. He couldn’t believe it. The town was now so united in its hatred for the radio tower that he’d naturally assumed Madam had changed her position as well. This continuing support was madness, plain and simple. And yet, if he was honest with himself, the thing that bothered him most was the discomfiting fact that Madam Félix, his mujer, was daring to disagree so totally and unashamedly with him, an hombre. When he next spoke, his words were no longer informed by reason or intelligence, but instead by the flames of an ancient machismo.

  — I meant that you are acting like a puta.

  Madam screamed and buried her face in her hands, where her tears mixed with mascara and ran down her cheeks like thin, muddy blood. The hacendero got out of bed. He was attempting to pull on his trousers just as Madam grabbed the heavy onyx ashtray from the table next to her. He was just getting his second leg into his pants when she hurled it with the might of six men. It clipped the hacendero on the side of the face. He fell, kicking, and the next thing he knew she was on top of him, weeping and slapping at him and calling him an hijo de puta and saying, over and over I knew it would come out! I knew all along what you really thought of me! I knew it I knew it I knew it!

  He grabbed her by the upper arms and threw her off. She fell, weeping hysterically, not just for the hacendero but for other severe torments she’d known in her life, all of which were choosing that moment to spring upon her. The hacendero finished pulling on his boots, shirt, and waistcoat and stormed out of the bedroom. As he charged down the hallway, he saw pair after pair of decorated eyes peering from partially opened doors. It was only when he reached the street and was met by dozens of frank stares that he realized his right eye was beginning to swell, and that he was bleeding from the spot where the ashtray had made contact with his cheekbone. He lowered his hat so that his broad face was more or less covered by the brim, and hurried along the street. When he reached his house, he was breathing heavily and feeling desperate; a minute later, his stomach was warmed by a tumb
ler’s worth of brandy. He poured another and drank it as well. He then paced the floors of his ruined house, until he noticed that he was mumbling like a madman.

  He paused before a large gilt-edged mirror that, thanks to a Villista rifleman, bore a crack running along the diagonal. He approached the mirror and looked at himself. The blood from his wound had stopped trickling and was beginning to harden against the side of his face. His right eye, he knew too well, would soon turn the indigo of a panther’s coat and swell so badly that when he placed a hand over his left eye, the world would come to him in the shape of a slit.

  He went to his quarters and for the next two days remained in bed, nursing himself with cigars, brandy, and the knowledge that, if worse came to worst, he still had money to buy passage back to Spain.

  { 25 }

  OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, WORD SPREAD AMONG Corazón de la Fuente’s long-time residents that Madam Félix was the only person in town who still supported the presence of Radio XER, the Sunshine Station from Between the Nations. Word also spread that Madam and the hacendero had not only severed their long-standing love affair, but had chosen to do so less than an hour after finally admitting to the rest of the village that it actually existed. Rumour also had it that the couple had separated because of differing opinions regarding the tower. This meant one thing: the radio tower, having ruined the public spaces of Corazón de la Fuente, was now reaching into the lives, the hearts, and, perhaps most significantly, the bedrooms of its people.

  Madam had lived side by side with the other townsfolk for more than a decade, and in that time she had always been treated with respect, courtesy, and gratitude. In return, she had always helped out wherever possible. Each September she bought pencils and notebooks for the students of the primary school, and it was widely known that her money was also responsible for the juice and tortillas given to children who came to school without a lunch. Because of these acts, small talk in the streets and plazas of Corazón de la Fuente had never included pronouncements on the morality of Madam’s business. Madam’s coterie of Marias was shown a similar respect. When one of them went out for a stroll, she did so with the happy knowledge that men would tip their hats and women would wish them a pleasant afternoon, and that more than one child would run up and offer a squeaky-voiced Hola, señorita.

  All that changed with a rapidity that even the most pessimistic of Mexicanos couldn’t have predicted. In the cantina run by Carlos Hernandez, the local men began to complain that they had always been denied the fleshly treats offered by the Marias, for the simple reason that they’d never had the gringo dollars necessary to sample them. Though this complaint had never been previously voiced in his cantina, it seemed that the frustration must have existed for years, in a place where sentiments fester and turn rank. One afternoon, while passing a table of drinkers, he heard one of them say Ay, cabrones, what I wouldn’t give to stick my parado in one of those Marias …

  The cantina owner stopped, turned, and looked down at the man, who was so drunk he was swaying from side to side. — Get out, he ordered. — I won’t allow such talk here.

  The next day, when he overheard a comment similar in its vulgarity, he did the same, this time sparking ugly glances and the possibility of trouble. By the third time, the cantina owner was overcome with raw fatigue. He sighed, and did nothing more than throw the offensive hombre a sour glance; by the end of the week his cantina echoed with every sort of slur regarding the brothel at the end of town.

  The women of Corazón de la Fuente were arguably worse. With their men drinking in the cantina, they would gather in the plaza and, under parasols woven from palm fronds, chat about the weather, their children, and how much they’d always hated those sluttish, eye-batting Marias. As with the hombres, their true feelings had never before been spoken aloud, and for this reason had acquired the odour of rot.

  Ay, was the refrain. How can I get my husband interested in me when those whorish Marias are constantly on his mind?

  Or: Amigas, you would not believe what my husband asked me to do to him the other night, and it’s all because of the filthy thoughts those Marias put in his head.

  Or: Ay, primas, those Marias, walking around in broad daylight dressed like common putas … there ought to be a law.

  At this last accusation they all nodded in solemn agreement, even though it was not in the slightest bit true. Madam always insisted that her Marias dress primly when in town, an edict involving long skirts, high-collared blouses, and only the most rudimentary of makeup.

  Soon the Marias could not take a walk without being subjected to hostile glances and whispered insults. Madam was treated this way as well. One day she walked into the store operated by Fajardo Jimenez to buy a quart of juice. The store was full, mostly with local women buying what little they could afford, given the drinking habits of their husbands. As soon as Madam entered, they all stopped speaking and stared straight ahead; this created a tension in the store that angered Madam, and further strengthened her resolve to support the radio station. She barged through them, head up, and placed her order with the Zacatecan, who smiled and, unlike the others, treated her with the cordiality he felt all of his customers were due. She left, though not before confronting one of the women with a bitter What are you looking at, bruja?

  The next day, around noon, when the Marias were in the process of waking up and making coffee and performing their morning ablutions, a sibilant crash came from the direction of the parlour. All of the Marias went running, and stopped at the doorway: in the middle of the madam’s Persian rug was a halo of broken glass, along with a brick wrapped in a sheet of paper. Madam, wearing her long red satin dressing gown, pushed through her Marias and paused in the doorway as well. Then, with a disgusted humph, she tightened her robe around her neck and approached the mess. She bent over and picked up the package, careful not to tear the paper as she removed it. Naturally, the note was covered with the sort of disgusting, animalistic comments that self-hating men have always made towards women. But what made Madam gasp, a bejewelled hand covering her mouth, was the fact that the handwriting looked decidedly feminine.

  — What’s so interesting? she barked at the Marias — Get back to what you were doing. And somebody clean up this mess.

  Other slights were made in town, some of which were accompanied by a little pushing and grabbing. Then, one night, around two o’clock in the morning, Maria de los Flores was tending to a client when she thought she smelled something. She ceased her cantering, sniffed the air more thoroughly, and immediately felt a registering of panic. She dismounted, her gringo yelling Whattya think yer doing? as she raced to the back of the house. Flames were just beginning to crawl up the wooden jacal-style rear wall. She screamed, ran inside, and alerted the other Marias, whose customers were soon growling their objections as well. Within minutes all of the Marias were out back, beating down the nascent fire with potato sacks, worn-out robes, and unlaundered sheets. This stemmed the blaze, and morning revealed a large, black burn on the rear of the house, which from a distance looked like the entrance to a cave.

  — Imagine, Madam spat. — Too stupid to start a decent fire. All they had to do was douse the wall in gasoline and the house would’ve gone up like a pile of dried leaves.

  This was hardly a source of consolation for the Marias, and one night, when Madam was having a bath in water softened with lechuguilla milk, they all met in the corral backing the house. The meeting was necessarily brief. Their gringo clients, as always, were lined up around the block, every one of them as amorous as a jailed felon.

  — These are dangerous times, noted Maria del Alma.

  — I don’t think, said Maria de la Noche, — that any of us should go out after dark.

  — No, said Maria de la Mañana. — It hardly matters anyway, given how busy we are once the sun sets.

  — And, said Maria del Sol, — when we go out during the day, I think we should always be with someone.

  This proposition was met with silen
ce, as most of the Marias counted on a daily constitutional to clear their heads and find some degree of solitude.

  — Sí, sighed Maria de las Montañas. — I think Maria is right. We should always go out with a partner. Even in broad daylight.

  Again there was a brief silence, during which the suggestion hung in the air with the resonance of a bell. Then Maria de la Noche spoke.

  — After a while, when things cool down, we can go back to normal. But not now. There’s a real bad feeling in town.

  As Maria de la Noche was the most influential of the Marias, they all nodded and then hurried back to their jobs.

  From then on, the Marias travelled in packs of three and four. Sometimes they responded to the taunts and insults that inevitably came their way — Maria de la Noche was particularly known for the sharpness of her tongue — though usually they walked straight ahead, stony-faced and non-responsive, wondering why they should be so pilloried for simply wanting a touch of exercise. In this way they remained safe. There was the odd piece of tossed fruit, and one morning some malcontent on a rooftop attempted to douse them with a bucket’s worth of slop water. Fortunately, his aim was poor, and only Maria de los Flores suffered a slightly dampened calf.

  There was one Maria, however, who neglected to follow the new safety procedures. Maria del Mampo came from a town in Oaxaca that was known for producing males who lived in the guise of a female. Though she wore makeup, high-heeled shoes, and a corset laced so tightly her cheeks looked continually flushed, it was nonetheless true that she was the size of a large hombre, shaved three times a day to avoid a shadow, and had a muscularity consistent with a childhood spent toiling in coffee fields. She, she believed, could handle anything dished up by the short-statured louts of Corazón de la Fuente. Besides, as the only Maria who could satisfy the more outré desires of Madam’s clientele, she rivalled Maria de la Noche as the house’s top earner. This gave her a false sense of security. Her knowledge of the ways of sin, she believed, was like a shield, protecting her from both enmity and bad fortune. Of course, there was another reason for Maria del Mampo’s cockiness. She carried a knife as long as a rolling pin tucked into her garter.