The Hidden Light of Mexico City

by Carmen Amato

  Chapter 14

  Luz wore her usual uniform of gray dress, ankle socks, and black loafers but Gonzalez Ruiz still looked at her admiringly as she got into the front passenger seat of the Portillo’s minivan. She nodded back, uncertain what to say. He drove with one thick hand on the wheel, the other on his fleshy knee, the cloth of his suit pants stretched tight. He wasn’t much of a talker, however, and it was a silent drive to the Portillo’s enormous house on Bosques de Almendros, a winding street in the Bosques de las Lomas neighborhood southwest of Lomas Virreyes.

  The van slid into the driveway and Gonzalez Ruiz indicated that she should walk to the right. Luz went around the side of the house and found the back patio.

  She paused before knocking on the kitchen door. On the far left of the expansive back lawn, a theatrical troupe was setting up a stage complete with big speakers, microphones, and footlights. On the other side of the yard several men in khaki pants and blue shirts reading FUN-A-MUNDO were using a motor to inflate a rocket ship that the kids would jump on. It was taller than the house with a cavernous entrance made to look like a loading dock. Opposite the back door of the house, more workmen were putting up food stalls for quesadillas, cotton candy, corkscrew potatoes on a stick, and other messy things that Luz would be wiping off children all afternoon.

  Señora Portillo seemed pleased to see her on time and left Luz in the kitchen with Dolores, the Portillo’s cook, and Nina, their maid. Dolores wore a white double-breasted chef’s smock. Nina wore the standard uniform dress except that in the Portillo household it was navy blue instead of gray.

  The Portillos’ house was full of art and color, with high-quality canvases hanging on nearly every wall. Luz would have liked to study the paintings but she had come to work. Caterers were preparing a big patio-level game room for the adults, setting up six round tables, each seating ten. Luz and Nina set the tables with sterling silver flatware, three different wineglasses for each place, and napkins folded into fans. Then they got the children’s tables ready.

  The party started at noon. There were over 40 children, all wound up by too much sugar, too many Cocas, and too much sensory input. The inflatable jumping thing was a big success, until one child got sick in it and play was suspended while Luz and Nina cleaned up. The theatrical troupe was noisy, the speakers blaring music and campy pre-recorded dialogue. The actors ran around on the stage in Star Wars costumes until Luz hoped El Ataque de los Clones would happen right now. A gymnastics group spread mats on the grass and the kids tumbled and cartwheeled, with the inevitable spills and crying. There were several piñatas suspended by a rope controlled by Gonzalez Ruiz. The children sang screechily as they took turns hitting the papier maché figures. The candy that spilled out wound them up even more.

  The adults stayed inside for the most part, eating the elegantly prepared buffet and discussing upper class issues. Much of the chatter was about the vacation house the Portillos had recently bought in San Miguel de Allende. A four hour drive northwest of Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende was famous for producing some of Mexico’s finest paintings, metalwork, and handicrafts. Serious collectors went to San Miguel to buy the sort of artwork hanging on the Portillos’ walls.

  By 10:00 pm most of the guests had gone home. Luz and Nina helped the caterers pack up. Señora Portillo gave Luz 200 pesos in small bills, as if paying her was painful, and told her that Gonzalez Ruiz would take her home.

  Luz followed the chauffeur to the Portillo’s van and got into the front passenger seat. Backseats, like certain dishes, were always reserved for the employer.

  It had been her second exhausting day in a row. Luz was glad for the silence. The van finally came to a stop opposite the Vega’s house. Gonzalez Ruiz killed the lights.

  “Thank you,” Luz said. She pressed the unlock button and heard the click. Her hand was on the door handle when Gonzalez Ruiz pressed the master lock on his side. Suddenly there was no resistance as Luz tried the door handle.

  He grabbed her left forearm.

  Surprised, Luz pulled back hard but Gonzalez Ruiz was like a bull. He dragged her over the seat divider and kissed her, trying to force her mouth open with gummy lips. His free hand groped at her chest.

  Luz twisted herself like a crazy person to get away but she simply wasn’t strong enough. He wouldn’t let go so she smacked him as hard as she could with her right hand, the crack of her palm against his cheek and ear surprisingly loud. She hit him, once, twice, three times before he finally let go.

  “Pendejo!” Luz shouted. She slammed her hand on the unlock button and leaped out of the van.

  Once upstairs, Luz locked the bathroom door, climbed into the shower, and scrubbed hard as if she could scour away the disaster of the past two days. Tomorrow would be better. She’d put on that impractical pink sweater and go to the museums, which were free on Sundays. First the Tamayo, then the Museum of Contemporary Art. Afterwards she’d walk into Chapultepec Park and eat at one of the taco stands that sold five tacos for 30 pesos. She could at least afford that.

  And for a whole day she wouldn’t think about the visa or Gonzalez Ruiz or Lupe’s baby or anything else that would remind her what a shambles her life had become.

  Chapter 15

  Eddo closed his apartment door and dropped his sportsbag and cleats on the doormat. The maid would take care of them the next time she came.

  He slumped into the big chair across from the television and closed his eyes. Tomás and Ana were great company, the closest friends he had, but it had been a huge mistake to go over to their house.

  As always, Ana was lovely and happy and glad to see him. He’d showered and changed in their guest room, and then he and Tomás watched the Toluca fútbol machine grind yet another hapless victim into the dust on television. After a delicious dinner Ana steered him around the house, pointing out all the improvements since the last time he’d been there. The old Spanish-style house in the historic San Angel district was full of warmth and character and they’d done a lot to make it a real home. The stucco walls were softened with deep tones and bright artwork, and they’d added modern fixtures and appliances. There were numerous pictures of Tomás and Ana and their respective families, along with colorful pillows and throws. A thousand details said that this was a place where two people loved and made love and were building a life together. They’d been married a year and the glow was still obvious. Eddo could see it in the way Tomás lit up when Ana walked into the room, or the way Ana unconsciously slipped her hand into her husband’s as they sat together on the sofa.

  Eddo had said something lame about the charity event Monday night and left.

  He turned on the television, the screen a ghostly glow in the dark room. He flicked through the channels and turned it off again.

  His life had come down to sitting alone in the dark with a head full of secrets and suspicions. More of Bernal Paz’s words came back unexpectedly. In all that time you’ve been concealed. Lurking in the shadows.

  The only thing the old man had been wrong about was Eddo’s father. Bolivar Cortez had been a crusader in his own way, and Eddo had watched him struggle against a never-ending web of bureaucratic and police corruption as Marca Cortez grew, fueled by his father’s desire to improve the lives of workers in Puebla. But both parents had died before seeing what their son had accomplished. Sometimes he missed them like hell.

  Eddo heaved himself out of the armchair and opened kitchen cupboards until he found where he’d stashed all the tequila he’d gotten last Christmas from ministry colleagues and subordinates who didn’t know what else to get a cold sonavabitch like him. He pulled out an unopened bottle of top grade tequila, found a water glass, and half filled it with the strong yellowish spirit. The stuff seared his throat and brought tears to his eyes. When it didn’t come back up he finished the glass and poured some more.

  He went back to the chair, shoving aside some newspapers in order to set the tequila bottle on the coffee table. He took another gulp and surveyed
the dark room, mentally comparing it to Ana and Tomás’s home.

  “You live like a fucking monk,” he announced to the bare walls. Between his ministry salary and his inheritance from Marca Cortez he could afford a palace, but an apartment in a building with good security and reliable plumbing was all he really needed. The place had two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. He’d turned the smaller one into a gym. The dining room functioned as an office. He had good electronics and a lot of books but that was about it.

  No color, no artwork. No connection to someone else.

  The tequila took hold, warming him, letting the sadness inside expand. A dead man. Don César was right.

  Eddo had confronted a lot of crime and evil during his career, but the investigation into Hugo de la Madrid Acosta was something else altogether. Something that was becoming a personal hurt. Eddo’s own judgment and instincts had been so very wrong. He’d trusted Hugo, respected him, held him up as a model, the sort of man who could help make change happen. It was almost impossible to believe that Hugo had sold his soul for drug money and had sullied his son’s name in the process. And for what? Hugo was already a rich man with all the power he needed. It didn’t make sense.

  As Eddo drank he wondered what the president’s reaction would be at breakfast on Monday. Betancourt and de la Madrid Acosta were professionally, if not personally, close. The president would not appreciate hearing that a trusted advisor was almost certainly connected to a cartel, using some Internet back door to send messages, and trying to launder money through numerous bank accounts. And what would be the president’s reaction when he realized that Arturo Romero had known first and signed the warrant? Anger? Revenge? Fuck.

  Eddo got to his feet and staggered down the hall to his bedroom. The white apartment walls undulated like the billowing sails of a ship but he got to the dresser and took out his gun. It was the same Glock automatic issued to him by Highway Patrol as its youngest lieutenant and no one had ever asked for it back. Every year Tomás made sure he was issued a new carry permit.

  Back in the living room Eddo shoved in the magazine, racked back the slide, and chambered a round. He played a warped and solitary drinking game, switching the glass and the gun between hands as his dexterity eroded. Finally he dropped the gun onto the coffee table.

  He hadn’t been this drunk since his freshman year of college in New Hampshire when he’d seen snow for the first time. The dorm had celebrated by introducing him to peppermint schnapps and Eduardo had morphed into Eddo. That had been a lifetime ago, when he’d known he would do hard things but they were still comfortably far off.

  The neck of the tequila bottle clanged against the rim of the glass as he poured out the last of the liquor. He raised the glass and saluted the loaded gun. “To loneliness, old friend,” he said, hearing the words through cotton wool. The title of a long forgotten book came back to him. “To the fucking loneliness of the long distance runner.”

  '

  Eddo woke sprawled in the chair, fist still wrapped around the glass. His head felt like granite. Making it to the kitchen was a major achievement. He managed to down water and aspirin, trashed the tequila bottle, unloaded the gun and put it away, stripped to his shorts and forced himself onto the treadmill.

  He gasped through the worst of the pain. By the third mile his body fell into its normal rhythm and he could think clearly, the self pity gone. He had to get out of the apartment. It didn’t matter what he did as long as it wasn’t work. He needed to be with people, see real life, get a dose of the true Mexico that kept him fighting so hard.

  A hot shower, clean clothes, a big coffee and breakfast roll at the Starbucks in Polanco and Eddo was human again. The sky was a surprising deep blue. His spirits lifted as he drove east on Reforma, past the Anthropology Museum. People on the wide sidewalks chattered happily as they waited for the museums to open. He found a parking space on Avenida Mahatma Gandhi, in the dust that served as an urban parking lot, and aimlessly followed a group through a small wooded area toward the Tamayo Museum. He emerged onto a plaza and the huge glass museum burst into view.

  Eddo stood still, taking it in, surprised at this massive structure he’d never seen despite having lived in Mexico City for so many years, always passing the giant curved sign on Reforma that announced the exhibits but never paying it any attention. The building was three stories high and he could see right through to the interior. The sun glinted off the glass façade.

  But the place wouldn’t open for 15 more minutes. Eddo was debating whether to wait or wander towards Chapultepec Park when he noticed a woman sitting alone on a plaza bench.

  She was wearing a bright pink sweater, dark jeans, and a brightly colored scarf. Glossy black ponytail. There was a sketchpad balanced on her knees and she was drawing diligently, glancing back and forth between the sketchpad and the museum building. Her eyes were big and intelligent and her lips pressed together as she concentrated.

  Before Eddo knew it the words were out of his mouth.

  Chapter 16

  “May I see what you’re doing?”

  Luz froze.

  Strangers never spoke to each other on the street in Mexico City unless they were thief and victim.

  Heart thumping, Luz raised her head and looked around.

  The man who had spoken was standing about ten feet away, close enough to speak to her, not so close as to be threatening. His hands were by his sides, not in his pockets, to show he wasn’t hiding anything. There was no one else around, no potential accomplice, and there was plenty of room to run around him if she had to. She automatically checked that the Prada tote was still safely tucked between her feet. But he didn’t look like a thief.

  He was tall; probably a head taller than she, and everything about him said upper class. He was quietly but expensively dressed in crisp khaki pants and a white ribbed pullover shirt, the trademark weekend outfit worn by wealthy people who had someone like Luz to wash la sopa out of light colored clothes. He wore a well-cut brown leather blazer over the white shirt, a pair of snub-toed casual shoes, and norteamericano Ray-Ban sunglasses.

  The only thing about him that wasn’t standard upper class was his hair. It was only about a centimeter long, the sort of cropped military haircut that no one wore. Men of all classes wore their hair much longer and slicked back with gel.

  “May I?” he asked. He gestured at the sketchpad. His voice was deep and strong, his diction clear and well-educated.

  He took a few steps closer and pulled off the sunglasses, and Luz realized that he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. His face was perfect, with a high forehead, excellent cheekbones, and a wide jaw tapering to a firm chin. His skin was darkened by the sun--if that was possible in Mexico City--and the effect against the white shirt was striking. But his eyes were more than striking, they were startling. They weren’t black-brown like mestizo or indio eyes, not even pale brown like Señora Vega’s. No, his eyes were hazel, a warm greenish gray that practically shouted out his elite position in Mexican society. He was probably pure castellano.

  Luz slowly turned the sketchpad around. She’d drawn the building, making the glass soar into the sky, elongating and curving it slightly like an El Greco structure. But the sun was glinting off the glass façade and the shading was all wrong.

  “It’s very good,” he said. He stepped to one side, a small athletic motion, glanced at the Tamayo, then back at the drawing. He raised his eyebrows in admiration. Luz couldn’t help noticing they were perfect feathery lines above those remarkable hazel eyes.

  An athlete, she guessed. He looked like pictures of European fútbol players, with clear smooth skin drawn tight over the hard edge of his jaw. The cords of his neck were well defined. The slouchy belt suggested narrow hips and a flat stomach. Maybe in his early or mid thirties, though, too old to be a professional player.

  “Is this for the museum?”

  “I’m sorry?” Luz realized she’d been staring and dropped her eyes.

 
“For the museum.” He gestured at the Tamayo with the sunglasses. His hands were well kept, but not soft. “Are you doing some promotional work?”

  “Who, me?” Estupida.

  “Yes.” He fiddled with the sunglasses. “The picture. It looks like something for the museum.”

  “No, señor,” Luz said. “I’m just drawing. The Tamayo is one of my favorite places.” She turned the sketchpad back around and looked at what she’d done so far.

  “It’s excellent.”

  “Thank you,” Luz said. She looked up again and by some insane coincidence met his hazel eyes and forgot to put her stupid face on. For a moment they stared at each other. Luz caught herself before she smiled at him like some fool who didn’t know her place.

  “But I’m having a lot of trouble with the light today.” Luz busied herself with her pencil case. “It’s too bright.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, taking a step closer.

  Luz smelled leather and soap and citrus.

  “Well, see this?” she heard herself say. Suddenly her finger was showing him where she’d drawn the reflection of the sun on the windows. “See how it’s darker here, near the roofline? I’m not used to drawing light, there’s usually too much smog. So I have to do it over and of course that sort of ruins the paper if I have to erase.”

  There were rules to keep the different social classes from getting too familiar with each other. Everyone knew them and Luz was breaking them all by chattering away like this. She shut her mouth and found her good gum eraser, the one with the brush on the end.

  “Do you usually do things over until you get them right?” he asked.

  “I usually get them right the first time,” Luz said unthinkingly. She pushed up the sleeves of the pink sweater so she wouldn’t get erasures on the beautiful cashmere and started to carefully rub off the pencil marks.