“It’s definitely prettier than a donut,” she said, looking at the spiral sugar surface mimicking the ridges of a seashell.
“And it’s cheap. You can buy a whole bag at La Vasconia for nothing.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“It’s a large bakery in downtown Mexico City. The office of my uncle’s lawyers is not far from there.”
“Never been to Mexico City,” she said.
Never been anywhere, although she had plans. Big plans. Paris was involved. Only… who knew since Gregory wasn’t Gregory, and it was probably idiotic to get any more attached to that idea than she already was.
Okay, even if she didn’t go to Paris— forget Paris—she could cobble enough money to make it to Mexico City. She should, and leave Gregory and Daisy to do whatever they wanted.
“You must travel a lot, since you were in Mexico City and Peru.”
“I travel a bit,” he said. “The family has a penthouse in Polanco so it seemed easy enough to fly in to Mexico City and then catch a plane to other places.”
“But you live in Boston? Or are you an expat?”
“I’ve spent a total of one month in Mexico and three weeks in Peru. We have business interests throughout Latin America, but frankly most of the Landrys stick to Massachusetts. This is supposed to be my grand tour of the region.”
She had, through her father, enough of an understanding of where the expats gathered in the city, since he had done a bit of translation work for Brits and Americans before making his way to Baja California. Enough of an understanding that she might picture Lawrence’s apartment, large and lavish, with a view of the park.
“Then you’re adventurous.”
“Hardly. You know, I was terrified that if I did have to rent a car here the roads would be terrible and I’d end up with a flat tire and no way to change it. I’m useless when it comes to any excitement. But I don’t think the roads are that bad. Are they?”
“More or less. It’s not the roads you should fear, but the air conditioning in the car failing.”
He actually looked concerned when she said that, as if she could will it to happen.
Viridiana traced the rim of her cup with her index finger, readying herself to say goodbye to Mr. Landry. Surely this had been enough of a conversation. It would not be rude.
“You can’t be named after the Buñuel movie, can you? You’d be too young,” he said, curious.
She looked up at him, equally intrigued. He’d gotten the movie reference right. “Eighteen. It came out the year I was born.”
Her father subscribed to Cahiers du cinéma. Her father read every news story he could about Buñuel and watched all his films as a student. Her father did not trust “mediocre people,” which is why he’d given her a glorious, distinctive name. Viridiana. Never to be shortened as the tacky “Viri” or the lazy “Diana.”
“Eighteen. Have you even finished high school?”
“Yes. A year early, to boot.”
Not that it had done her any good. Finishing school meant her mother wanted her behind the counter, full-time, and married off. She believed Viridiana would rot as quickly as a banana, her appeal gone by the time she hit twenty.
“You must be a smart kid,” he said, and she supposed it could be interpreted as a compliment but she absolutely hated the way it sounded. Kid. As if he was standing at the upper rung of a ladder, which he absolutely was since he was a man on a grand tour.
“You don’t look too much older than me. You look like a kid too, I could take you for a high schooler,” she said, meaning it as a jab. And it was no lie. She bet he still had a crop of pimples popping out now and then.
One boy is the same as another, she thought, remembering Manuel, but a man is a different story.
Gregory was a man.
“I’m twenty-four, so, a bit older.”
“You must have come to Mexico right after university. Looking for an exotic adventure, no doubt. Like they all do. Backpackers, surfers, people on tour buses. Doesn’t matter if you can or can’t change a tire, I’m sure someone can do it for you for a pittance.”
He frowned.
She pushed her coffee cup aside, ready to bid him a goodbye, but he must have sensed that was her next move.
“I’ve got a favor to ask you,” he said.
“Me?” she replied, actually surprised by that.
“I’m supposed to meet with your town’s police officer today. I’d like you to translate for me.”
“Didn’t you hire a translator?”
“Alejandro Esparza.”
“It didn’t work out?” Viridiana asked, confused.
“I don’t think he’s a very good translator. Let’s say I want a second opinion.”
“I really can’t. Alejandro doesn’t like me, he’ll be pissed off if I’m standing there with you.”
“He’s getting paid. He’ll do as I say.”
He reminded her of Ambrose then, the way his mouth seemed to almost set into a sneer, but not quite. He looked fully his age when he did that, the boy vanishing.
“I don’t trust him,” Lawrence said, crossing his arms. “He tried to cheat me when I got into town.”
“It doesn’t mean he can’t translate.”
“I’d pay you. It wouldn’t be for free.”
Money. Good money, no doubt, and wasn’t that what she needed? Cold hard cash. Gregory was an illusion, a dream. There was no Paris, was there? And who’d go to Paris with a stranger, a liar.
I might, she thought. In the end, I might.
She was curious, too. Curious about where all this was headed and what Lawrence intended. It made sense to keep an eye on him if she could, to keep informed.
“Would it take long?”
“I don’t think so,” Lawrence said, checking his watch. “I could pay you in cash, right now, beforehand, if you don’t—”
He opened his wallet.
“No,” she said, stretching a hand out and setting it atop his. “Later is fine.”
She had not finished her coffee, so she did that.
* * *
Alejandro did not even try to pretend cordiality.
“What the fuck are you doing with this guy?” he asked in Spanish, glancing from her to Lawrence, and then back at her.
“Helping him out with some stuff,” she said coolly.
“Sucking cock, I bet.”
Viridiana did not waste her words on him, turning her head away. When Lawrence explained in English that Viridiana was his friend, Alejandro’s face was pure disbelief, but he did not contest her appearance at the police station. Lawrence held the door open for her and she walked in.
The police station was small and on certain days it smelled of whatever fritanga Homero was eating, but he had refrained that day. Likely because he knew he’d have company.
Homero was as courteous as he could be, which is to say he offered the three of them a cold soda from the mini refrigerator. That he did not offer them a beer, however, indicated he was not too pleased to see them. He drank liberally with his friends and used the station more for sweet talking women than actual work. On his desk there were several stacks of raunchy comic books—cowboy stories, all of them —along with old copies of Alarma!
Behind the desk hung a massive map of Baja California and a corkboard. In a corner, there was a neglected typewriter.
Homero made much show of moving a stack of papers and folders away before he began addressing them, as if he’d been hard at work.
Lawrence had a bunch of questions, which Alejandro translated. Back and forth they went. For most of the conversation, Homero fiddled with a paper clip, before breaking it, frowning, and grabbing another one.
His courtesy eroded after a few minutes. He was fed up, and turning to Alejandro, said, “What the hell is wrong with this guy? Can’t he be done now? I’m hungry, and can’t be chit-chatting all day long. Who does this guy think he is? Doe
s he fancy himself a private investigator?”
It went on like that until Homero finally declared he had nothing else to say and ushered them out the door. Lawrence paid Alejandro and Alejandro took care to give Viridiana a bitter, long stare before departing.
“Let’s find a place to talk,” Lawrence said.
“This way,” she said, and guided him towards a narrow side street that was actually pretty, because there wasn’t very much that was pretty in Desengaño. The sea was beautiful and so was the desert, but those were not part of the town proper.
On the west side of the street ran a wall made of red bricks, and next to it grew a succession of bugambilias, which, with their explosive purple colors, contrasted with the palo blanco trees that shone, slender, smooth and pale, under the sun. This was the vast garden of the widow Allende, who had come from Guadalajara thirty years before and tried to make herself comfortable in this peninsula of salt and sand by tending to her plants.
Viridiana sat on a section of the wall which had tumbled down and therefore offered a low perch. Lawrence sat next to her.
“I don’t think I’ve seen this tree before,” he said, looking at the palo blanco.
“The Cochimi called it gokio,” she said. “They used it to treat sores. And that one, over there, that’s the tree where jumping beans come from.”
She pointed at clump of tall shrubs with serrated leafs.
“Really?”
“It’s very dangerous. If you sleep under it you’ll go blind.”
“You’re a liar, since you are smiling,” he said, sounding amused.
“Believe what you want.”
“A shrub can’t really blind you, can it?”
“Maybe the blinding, that’s a tall-tale. But it was used to poison arrows. And if you threw it in the water it would poison the fish.”
Viridiana kicked her heels back and looked up at the foliage. She had done this same thing many times, following the red wall, with a stick between her hands, and resting there, hidden from everyone since the only thing across the street was an empty lot with weeds. She liked it better here than at the lighthouse, although both offered convenient pools of solitude.
“I could speak more about the flora of the region, but I suspect it doesn’t interest you. What is it that you needed from me?” she asked.
“Exactly what I asked for. A translation. You heard what Alejandro said, do you think he spoke well?”
“Well enough, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“He omitted things.”
“Can you elaborate?”
“Mostly Homero’s slurs,” she said. “Homero was being rude at points. And there were some bits… I don’t know, he told you that the doctor examined the body the night of the accident, but that’s not what Homero said. Homero said he thought perhaps the doctor looked at the body during the night, perhaps the morning, he couldn’t know.”
“What else?”
Viridiana tried to recall the conversation as best she could and pointed out half a dozen mistakes Alejandro had made. When she finished talking Lawrence was frowning.
“You’re telling me that he’s worthless, then.”
“I didn’t say that,” Viridiana replied. “He spoke the gist of it.”
“The gist wouldn’t do at an inquest.”
“This is not an inquest.”
Lawrence stood up and placed his hands in his pockets, looking at her with his sober, plain face made even more sober at this very moment.
“I’m meeting the physician who examined my uncle’s body the day after tomorrow. I want you translating for me.”
“I already did you a favor today,” she said.
“Then do me a favor again.”
Viridiana did not reply, lifting her hand which had been resting against the bricks and looking at her palm, as if she’d found something of interest there. Her aunt read books about zodiac signs and palmistry, and had promised her a long life full of luxuries.
“You hired Alejandro already, and he doesn’t like me.”
“It doesn’t matter what he likes. It was clearly a mistake.”
“I’m busy,” she said and stood up, ready to walk back to the town square where she’d left her bicycle around the corner from the police station.
He raised both of his hands and pressed them together in front of his face. “Please,” he said, with an unexpected vehemence which made Viridiana sit down again.
A line of ants was running by the wall, diligently going in one direction. She observed them, knowing she could easily stomp her foot down and kill a dozen or so. She thought about Ambrose, in his wooden coffin, and the feast the insects and maggots must be enjoying there.
She felt sick, pressed a hand against her mouth, turning her head.
I did nothing wrong, she thought. I prayed him the rosary, I owe you nothing.
“What time are you meeting him?” she asked, nevertheless.
“Seven o’clock, at his house.”
“I’ll drop by.”
“Thank you.”
Viridiana nodded. He sat down next to her. One of the ants was carrying a large crust of bread. She watched it march away with its bounty. Viridiana took off her hat and set it on her lap.
“Is that really a jumping bean tree?” Lawrence asked.
“Yes. But they wouldn’t be jumping this time of year. The shrubs, and its pods, are the home of the larva of a gray moth. They consume the pod from within and then burst out. The larva wriggling inside is what makes the bean move. But right now, the moth hasn’t laid its eggs yet.”
“I think I had some of those beans when I was a kid. When I cupped them in my hand they moved.”
“It’s the warmth of your hand making the larva twitch. Did you have sea monkeys, too?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “And I do know those are not monkeys, despite what the back of my comic books claimed.”
“Brine shrimp. It’s all illusions and make-believe, Mr. Landry.”
“Law,” he said. “You can call me Law.”
“Hmm,” Viridiana said.
“You’re going to call me Mr. Landry, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
“I hate being Mr. Landry. It makes it sound like I’m my uncle now. It’s strange. And you were right in what you said before, I suppose I do look young and it is ridiculous to have anyone say ‘Mister’ to me. Although it’s all ‘Señor’ this and that at the hotel.”
“If it helps, you can be Lawrence to me. Laurentum. You are a tree. Not as pretty as our bugambilia.”
She’d have no problem calling Gregory “Greg” at some point, but that was different.
Of course, Gregory was not really Gregory. He was three men and who knew which one was the true him. James. Jerry. Gregory. His nickname could be anything.
Lawrence gave her a searching look. Solemn and searching, like he was doing a crossword. Like he was trying to figure her out. She couldn’t figure herself out, God knew what he was going to find.
“I ought to head back,” she said, putting on her hat again and tucking away a stray lock of hair.
“I’ll walk with you.”
Chapter 15
That night she lay on the bed with the tape recorder at her side, not uttering any words, telling herself she would press the button any minute now. Then Gregory came by, sat on her bed, flashed a grin at her. Viridiana put the tape recorder under the bed.
He made a couple of jokes, laughed, told her she ought to have gone down to the beach with them. She regarded him dubiously. But when he touched her breasts and laid her back on the bed, she allowed it. She wanted to be touched, that much she was sure of, and she didn’t mind caressing him back.
It soured quickly when he tried to get her undressed, pulling the hem of her shirt up. Viridiana pulled it down.
“I want to fuck you,” he said, breathed it against her ear. Perhaps he thought it wa
s sexy to put it like that, to be blunt and raw. It only served to make her recoil.
“I told you, no,” she said, scooting back from him.
He had been full of good humor when he arrived, but that was evaporating. He stared at her.
“Look, I’m not an idiot boy. I can pull out if you’re worried about that.”
She laughed at him because he didn’t get it. He couldn’t. Machos and Madonnas, and how you had to be a good girl or you were trash. Plus that idiocy about pulling out. Even in her inexperience she wouldn’t have fallen for that line.
“There’s a place near Monterrey where girls go to have their virginity fixed again, do you understand? People talk, in a place like this they talk and they expect certain things from you and…it’s the only thing I have.”
“It’s a shit town if that’s the case,” he said.
“Yes, but it’s my shit town. It’s the place where I live. No other place for me.”
He sighed and shook his head. She knew exactly what he was thinking: idiot and prude. It maddened her to be considered inferior, faulty.
“Not forever. There’s Paris,” he said.
“There’s Paris,” she said, and fixed her gaze on him. She could not hold her tongue any longer, she could not accept this bullshit. “What’s your real name?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning.
“I saw the driver’s licenses in your bathroom.”
“Damn,” he said it without inflection.
“Yeah, damn. James-Jerry-Gregory. There is no Paris,” she said, getting up from the bed. Her voice was high-pitched, girlish. Silly.
He stood up, caught Viridiana by the arm and tugged at her, pulling her towards him. Her back rested against his chest.
“Bartholomew,” he said. “My name is Bartholomew.”
Bartholomew. She savored each syllable.
“You aren’t lying?”
“Why would I lie about a name like that? Give me some credit.”
He had released her arm, but ran his fingers upon and down her sides, from her shoulders to her wrists, casually. Barely brushing her skin and she felt his chin coming to rest upon the top of her head.
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