The Hidden Light of Mexico City

by Carmen Amato

  Señora Vega’s voice came through. “You didn’t tell me about the party. We’re going to Valle de Bravo next weekend.”

  “I’m not going to Valle de Bravo. It’s boring,” Francesca shouted back from behind the door and the battle was on.

  Luz and Rosa made mock sad faces at each other across the kitchen table as the mother and daughter shrilled at each other on the other side of the door, Francesca rebelling against the boredom of the Vega’s weekend house in Valle de Bravo, her lack of new clothes, and her scant 3000 pesos per week allowance. The argument ended when Señora Vega said they could go to the Liverpool department store in Polanco on Saturday.

  The swinging door opened and Luz and Rosa screwed on their stupid faces, the masks of servility and feigned incomprehension that every domestic in Mexico City wore at some time or another. Señora Vega stalked into the room, her high heels clicking on the terrazzo floor. Both maids stood up.

  “Rosa.” Señora Vega went over to the wall where keys to all the households’ doors, windows and cars hung neatly below labels. She let the maids wait while she selected the keys to the big sedan, then pivoted on one stiletto and gestured at the younger maid. “Tomorrow you’ll help me clean out all the closets. Luz, you’ll go with Victoria to her swim lesson at the school. And you’ll do some arrangements for the front room, too, for my luncheon on Wednesday.”

  “Si, señora,” Luz murmured. A few years ago Señora Vega had sent Luz to the big florista school near the equestrian center in Chapultepec Park. Luz had passed all three levels and her arrangements always earned la señora lavish compliments.

  Selena Obregon Javier de Vega was both the most demanding and most interesting employer Luz had ever had. First and foremost she was a true castellano. For the most part, Mexico’s elite upper class was made up of criollos, people of pure Spanish blood born in Mexico. Castellanos were the elite of the elite, Mexicans whose Spanish heritage could be traced to Castile, region of kings and conquistadores. Señora Vega burnished her lofty place in Mexican society by claiming to have gone to college in Lisbon and affecting a Portuguese accent, which Luz knew to be fake because it disappeared when she was stressed or angry. It made all her “z’s” turn into “sh” and she customarily referred to Luz as “Loosh.”

  “Señor Vega is working late and I have a parent-teacher conference.” Señora Vega slid a bottle of water into her purse and checked her reflection in the steel surface of the big refrigerator. She was a decorative woman in her early forties, tall and fine boned and razor-thin from hours of spinning classes and tennis lessons at the club, and she gleamed from mornings at the spa being massaged and creamed and having her hair siliconed into a shiny spill of flat silk. She wore it in a ponytail, the near mandatory hairstyle for upper class women. Tonight she was wearing a tweed pantsuit and a silver rope necklace. There was a large leather Furla bag over her shoulder, a gold tag proclaiming its Italian pedigree.

  “Will you need anything else tonight, señora?” Rosa asked.

  Señora Vega narrowed her eyes at the remains of the two maids’ dinner. Luz knew she was making sure they’d been eating off plates from the servants’ cupboard and not using the family dishes.

  “Alejandro’s friends are still in the children’s game room,” Senora Vega said, with a manicured gesture at the door to the breakfast room. “Hector will take them home in the Suburban. Make sure the room is cleaned up before you go upstairs.”

  She click-clicked out the door to the garage, the Furla bag swinging. Rosa and Luz sat back down. A minute later, the bank of security cameras mounted on the kitchen wall above the steel work counter showed the gate opening and the car backing out. Raul, the ancient gardener, shambled across the camera’s view and shut the gate. The security cameras were a necessity in Mexico City for a wealthy family like the Vegas. Señor Vega owned a publishing company and the Vega house was a veritable fortress on Fray Payo de Rivera, a narrow street of exclusive homes barricaded by 20-foot high stucco walls and elaborate iron gates.

  “Parent-teacher conference,” Rosa smirked. “Sure. And he’s working late.”

  “Segunda frente,” Luz murmured and ate the last bite of the now cold taquitos on her plate. The entire household knew the euphemism for Señor Vega being with his mistress, his segunda frente or second front, as the saying went.

  “You were looking at Reforma.” Rosa carried their dirty plates to the sink. “Did you see the picture?”

  “What picture?” Luz got out 9-year-old Victoria’s school books and the little homework planner labeled Mis Tareas. It was only history and English tonight.

  Rosa wiped her hands on her apron and fished the newspaper out of the recycling bin, clicking her tongue and shuffling the pages until she found what she was looking for.

  “There,” she said triumphantly and spread the paper on the table.

  It was the La Gente section, the society pages that featured photographs of Mexico’s elite at various balls and charity events. Luz followed Rosa’s finger to a color photograph of a dinner dance to raise funds for the Colegio Americano. Francesca was seated at a table, wearing a clingy black strapless thing. Her hair and makeup made her look at least ten years older.

  Standing behind Francesca and next to Señor Vega was a voluptuous young woman in her early twenties wearing a dramatic red gown with a full skirt and plunging neckline. Her cleavage was bursting out of the front of the dress.

  “That’s her,” Rosa said. “She’s a teacher at the school.”

  Luz looked up. “How do you know?”

  Rosa tapped the newspaper. “I found a letter in the trash with her name on it.”

  “Doesn’t prove anything,” Luz said doubtfully.

  “That dress probably got him hard as a rock,” Rosa observed.

  “Rosa,” Luz exclaimed, torn between laughter and embarrassment. “Dios mio! The things you say.”

  Rosa washed their dishes, as well as those of Raul who had eaten earlier. Luz finished the children’s homework. The Colegio Americano taught two concurrent curriculums; one in Spanish from Mexico’s Secretariat de Educatión Publico and one in English from the norteamericano state of Texas. Both curriculums assumed a full six hour school day but at the Colegio Americano each was taught in just three hours in order to squeeze in both. Anything the teachers didn’t cover during the compressed classes was assigned as homework.

  Luz got out her colored pencils and drew a couple dancing the flamenco on Francesca’s notebook, the man in a short embroidered jacket like a mariachi traje, the woman in a red dress with a wide, flaring skirt. The faces of both flamenco dancers were turned away. The woman’s hands clapped over her head, further obscuring her features.

  Rosa came over to the table with two empty trays and peered at the drawing. “Again no faces.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Luz shrugged. “I’m not ever going to be a real artist.”

  '

  Hector was sitting in the hall in his dark suit and tie, waiting to take Alejandro’s friends home, and he nodded impassively as Luz and Rosa passed by with their trays. As a chauffeur, Hector was at the top of the social scale of domestic servitude, ranking even higher than Marisol the cook, and he never let the others forget it. Like Marisol, he didn’t live under the Vega’s roof but had a wife and children in a home clear on the other side of the city, near the airport.

  The game room was a mess. Alejandro, the oldest Vega child, sprawled on the big sectional sofa with his three friends. He was a lanky teen with his mother’s honey-colored hair and the beginnings of a scraggly beard. Luz and Rosa unobtrusively loaded their trays with dirty dishes, careful not to block the television or otherwise intrude upon the boys’ cognizance.

  It was the part of being a maid Luz loathed; that feeling of having to make herself invisible. When Alejandro’s friends had arrived she’d led them to the game room and waited to take their jackets as they’d ignored her and said “How’re they hanging, buddy,” in English, showing off their Coleg
io Americano slang. They lapsed back into Spanish as they went through some weird teen-aged handslapping ritual.

  The boys were watching the television show about the tall, funny doctor who lived with his father and gave people advice over the radio. The Vega’s satellite service showed it in English. The doctor and his brother were arguing, his father’s dog was digging up the carpet, and the dark-haired girl was saying something besides, and when the punchline came Luz caught it and laughed out loud.

  She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, surprised by her own indiscretion.

  “Get out, Luz,” Alejandro said in the voice of a teenager used to giving orders to servants.

  “Unless she wants to stay and pretend to be a taquito,” one of his friends said with a throaty laugh.

  “She’s got a body in there somewhere,” jeered Alejandro. “Anybody got 50 pesos?”

  Luz clamped on her stupid face as she and Rosa hauled away the trays of dirty dishes.

  '

  It was close to midnight before Luz and Rosa went upstairs to the maids’ attic bedroom, simply furnished with two twin beds and a wall of built-in closets. Luz changed into her nightgown, smoothed the art review she’d torn out of the newspaper, and reached under her bed for her collection of old school notebooks. For years she’d kept every interesting article she found, creating a tattered encyclopedia of painters and museums and people who created the beautiful things she never would. She glued the article into the current notebook and reread it, savoring every word. A Nadia Porov exhibit was at the Tamayo until the end of October. Luz had seen a Porov exhibit once before and it had been strange and breathtaking.

  “Let me guess,” Rosa said as she came out of the bathroom. “Museum stuff. Jesu, but you can be dull.”

  “The Tamayo is never dull,” Luz said absently. She found last year’s notebook and flipped through the pages until she found the review describing the previous Porov exhibit.

  Rosa climbed into her bed. “So why did you cut your hair?”

  Luz sighed, put the notebooks away, and got under the covers. “My sister Lupe is pregnant and I need to save money.”

  Rosa made a face. “Is she going to get married?”

  “She hasn’t even told the father yet.”

  “Who is he?”

  “She won’t say.”

  The two twin beds were separated by a bedside table. A small lamp cast a soft glow over the mismatched blankets. Rosa turned on her side to face Luz. “A mystery father,” she marveled.

  “It’s just so odd.” Luz propped her head on her elbow. Late night was the only time to talk without fear of being overheard or interrupted by any of the Vegas. “Lupe never goes anyplace. She doesn’t even work. I don’t know how she did it.”

  “He has a car,” Rosa said firmly.

  “Dios mio,” Luz groaned. Rosa was always doing it in her boyfriends’ cars. Of course, Luz had done it in a few cars herself, because single people never lived alone. Everyone lived with their families unless they were muchacha plantas like Luz and Rosa who lived with their employers. “It doesn’t matter if he has a car or not. Lupe never goes out without the girls.”

  “Never?” Rosa, who escaped from her parents and the Vega house every chance she could, had a hard time with that.

  “Church. She goes to church by herself and that’s it.”

  “Oooh, a priest,” Rosa breathed and sat up. “I saw a movie like that once. The priest was young and handsome and --.”

  “No, no,” Luz protested. “Father Santiago is at least 100.”

  “Is he the only one?”

  Luz blinked and her heart turned over in her chest. “No,” she whispered. “Some seminarians stayed with Father Santiago a couple of months ago.”

  “Bet one of them was cute,” Rosa chortled.

  “That’s why Lupe hasn’t told him.” Luz flopped on her back, suddenly needing air in her lungs. No wonder Carmelita hadn’t known. “He would have been there in August but now he’s locked in a seminary someplace.”

  “They don’t wear anything under their cassocks,” Rosa said knowingly.

  Luz stared at the ceiling, her thoughts swirling. That was it. Lupe hadn’t told this young seminarian that she was pregnant because she had no access to him. When she did, of course he’d offer to marry her. He’d leave the seminary and come to live with the family. He’d be some delicate young man, without any survival skills, a man who’d wanted to devote his life to prayer and charity and he wouldn’t be fit to do anything else.

  He’d be yet another mouth for Luz to feed.

  Chapter 6

  It was just a nameless spot in Los Olivos, the little town that long ago had been enclosed by Mexico City’s westward sprawl, with a serving counter at the back and Formica-topped tables and plastic chairs spilling out onto the sidewalk. The place opened early, serving breakfast to local workingmen; rolls and huevos and cups of the sludgy corn-based atole drink.

  There wasn’t a menu, just a chalkboard with options. Eddo and the other two men ordered coffee and chilaquiles, a hash made from leftover tortillas. The girl who’d slung down their plates had a greasy perm and a sullen expression. At least the salsa looked fresh. Eddo hoped there wasn’t more salmonella in it than his system could handle.

  They ate fast at one of the sidewalk tables in front of the serving counter, just three more casual laborers hoping to find work that day. Eddo wore the typical barrio workingman’s outfit of faded baggy jeans, work boots, dark tee shirt and cotton overshirt. A dirty ball cap concealed his short hair and light eyes. Across the table, his closest friend Tomás Valderama Castro sported similarly worn and grubby clothes.

  Tomás pushed aside his half-empty plate and gestured at Miguel Pintero Rojas, a young man with a smooth round face and metal-rimmed glasses who’d eaten his food with a mixture of trepidation and excitement at being in such a low class neighborhood. But Miguel needed to learn how to handle himself in places like Los Olivos and it was one of the reasons they were there.

  Miguel pulled a tabloid newspaper from a backpack and handed it to Eddo. The front page featured a lurid photo of a body that had been literally shot to bloody pieces in a drug cartel firefight. “Page five,” Miguel murmured.

  Eddo fished out his reading glasses. Page five had a sheet of printer paper taped to it, showing a list of five userids, each comprised of 10 random letters and numbers. Under the list appeared to be directions how to use the userids to access a website.

  “This was on a flash drive the Army picked up in the El Toro raid outside Nuevo Laredo.” Tomás was two years younger than Eddo, with a muscular, stocky build, similarly short hair, and dark eyes that few knew how to read. The clothes he wore were a far cry from the suits of a Highway Patrol lieutenant

  “The Army raid three weeks ago?” Eddo asked. His seat faced the sidewalk, with his back to the restaurant wall so he could watch who came by, but he closed the newspaper anyway to prevent someone seeing inside.

  “Yes,” Tomás said. The two friends exchanged an unhappy look. The Mexican army was battling the cartels and in many places it was open warfare, destroying any hope the police might have had of interrogating suspects or using informants. Of course the army had been called in because the local police were often in the pocket of one cartel or another and now everyone was wondering the same thing about the army. “The place was empty but some electronics got left behind and came to Miguel to look through.”

  An ancient red delivery truck lurched past, its tailpipe dragging and sparking along the broken pavement, and turned into the repair garage across the street. The place advertised brake work and oil changes and cheap retreaded tires.

  “There were two files on the flash drive,” Miguel said. He was just a few years out of college and pulling down a fat salary as the Judicial Police’s webmaster. The kid knew things about computers that would have taken Eddo two lifetimes to learn. “One file with directions for accessing and uploading information to a website and anot
her file with a list of userids authorized to access it. I can get to the log-in page it describes but without a password for any of the userids the directions are useless.”

  Eddo opened the newspaper again. The process for logging into the website was complicated and obviously designed to protect unauthorized access.

  “The login process points the user to a real website that hosts business content.” Miguel pulled his cheap white plastic chair closer to the table and pointed to the URL printed on the page. “Businesses buy private server space and put in data they only want their employees to see. When the company adds content, they get a certain number of characters to post a description. The directions explain how to post something using a specific attachment. Every time one of the userids wants to post something they’re supposed to use the same article about how much it costs a country to host the World Cup.”

  “So they’re using the postings description to pass information,” Tomás surmised.

  “You said it’s a business site,” Eddo said. “Who owns it?”

  “The page that the userids access is just dangling,” Miguel replied. “It’s using the website’s capabilities but isn’t linked to any of the company registrations inside the site. A real pro set it up.”

  Two little schoolgirls walked by, their plaid uniform skirts swinging and their red bookbags bumping on the sidewalk. The metal door of the abarrotes shop next door to the restaurant rolled up with a clatter as the girls passed, revealing its stock of snacks and sodas and Amigo cell phone cards. Los Olivos was coming to life.

  The salsa and the chilaquiles started to fight it out in Eddo’s stomach. He leaned forward. “So basically what you’re saying is that that the El Toro cartel is technically savvy enough to hack in a back door and use this content sharing site as if it was Twitter or something. Or at least that’s what these directions from the flash drive would indicate.”