by Glen Carter
Selena looked at her warily. “We’ve got to get back before Sister Evangeline knows we’re gone, remember?”
“She’s too fat to find us,” Mercedes said, grinning. It took her a dozen trips, filling her straw hat with water, to create the messy mud hole.
“What if someone comes along?”
“I’ll be covered in mud, silly. No one’s gonna see me. The mud’ll make me vinsible.”
“You mean invisible.”
“In-visible, si.”
Selena helped her friend remove her tiny bathing suit. “Lie down, I’ll slop the mud on you, then you spread it.”
Dark gobs of cool muck soon covered Mercedes from head to toe. “Real sisters now,” Mercedes said affectionately. “Now we’re both vinsible.”
Selena surveyed their work, satisfied for a moment before the realization hit her. “Now you’re blacker than me.”
Mercedes nodded, and before Selena could protest she scooped up a handful of thick gooey mud and shoved it in Selena’s face. More followed. Both squealing girls slung as much mud as they could before collapsing exhausted, unrecognizable mounds of muck.
The girls had gone quiet and still, their rising bellies the only sign there was life beneath the mud.
Mercedes turned a sharp bend in the dirt road and tried to picture the scene. Both of them had fallen asleep until they heard Sister Evangeline’s screech. The sun had disappeared behind some hills, and the mud that covered them had dried hard as cement. Sister Evangeline, who had warned them more than once never to go to the swimming hole alone, had searched an hour for the missing girls.
“Dear God, let them be alive,” she cried, breathless from the exertion and the shock when she found them. To the old nun they must have looked like fleshy insects encased in black crusty cocoons.
Mercedes and Selena flipped their eyes open and stared at the corpulent nun with the look of innocents. Then they howled with laughter.
It didn’t help.
Sister Evangeline’s rage peaked in a wave of red. “You little imp,” she wheezed and in one stumbling motion jerked Selena from the ground. “The spawn of Satan,” she cried. “And you – the instigator,” she barked at Mercedes. “Your idea, no doubt.”
Mercedes was astonished at how tight the dried mud felt. She had to pee now too.
“Demon seed, the both of you,” Sister Evangeline shouted, tugging both children in the wake of her flowing black habit. “You’ve missed supper. You won’t be getting any.”
Mercedes scooped up her bathing suit quickly and stole a glance at Selena. The dried mud on their faces fell away as they giggled.
Selena stopped laughing. “I thought you said we’d be invisible.” Mercedes tried to keep up, her brow wrinkling in thought. “Your Uncle Orlando told me black people are always invisible,” Mercedes finally declared. “I guess not to nuns.”
Mercedes thought about the day in Selena’s apartment when she’d told her best friend about Montello. Told her she was a dead woman if she didn’t run. As Mercedes drove along the old logging road she wondered just how invisible she and Selena could become. Pretty invisible, she prayed.
As the little car bounced along the narrow road Mercedes checked her watch and smiled to herself. Decent time. Twenty minutes later she inched her dusty tires onto the searing pavement of the main highway and braked while a pickup truck loaded with farm workers lumbered by belching blue smoke into the afternoon sunlight. A couple of them looked surprised when they saw the little car emerge from the overgrown road and pull onto the highway behind them. Mercedes thought about Selena once more.
“I’m just a poor little nigger girl,” Selena had shouted above the din of the music while she danced that day in her apartment.
“Selena!”
“It’s the truth.”
“A poor little…” Mercedes stopped then. She could never use the word. “A poor little girl who happens to have a master’s degree in business and works for the biggest bank in Colombia. An account executive no less.”
When the music ended Selena collapsed on the floor and rolled over on her back.
“Still a slave, Mercedes. Still a slave. Different master, that’s all.”
Both of them had laughed at that. Then Selena became serious, turned her head towards Mercedes with a suspicious look on her face. “What’s with the turtleneck? It’s hot as an oven,” Selena had said.
Mercedes considered a lie but after a moment pulled the top of her sweater forward to reveal the ugly purple marks which circled her neck.
“My god,” Selena said, pulling herself to her knees. Anger mottled her features. She leaned forward to take a closer look. “That bastard!”
Selena jumped up. “Don’t you move,” she commanded, disappearing into the kitchen.
A moment later, Mercedes was startled by the shriek of the tea kettle. Selena emerged from the kitchen carrying two cups of steaming brew. She placed one gently on the table in front of Mercedes and reached over to touch her friend’s hand.
Mercedes looked at her with tears in her eyes.
“Tell me what happened,” Selena said softly.
Mercedes told her everything. From the beginning.
TWELVE
Branko Montello wore a dark rich suit the first time she saw him. He didn’t flash cash or jewelry, though the two bodyguards in his wake suggested a man who would not require a reservation. DeMarco’s was full on the night he walked in, without one.
Luigi, the owner, was alight, and had personally ushered Montello to the best table in the restaurant, an alcove saturated in the golden light of oil lamps and the relaxing scent of freshly cut flowers. Mercedes hovered nearby.
Montello didn’t seem to notice or care that other patrons had stopped eating to stare at him. Instead he seemed transfixed by fading frescos a century old on the alcove’s domed ceiling, and after a few minutes he turned his head to speak to her. “Come here please,” he had said in a deep soft voice that sounded equally to Mercedes like a command and an invitation.
Who does this guy think he is? she thought as she picked up a wine list and smiled.
Sister Evangeline would have disapproved sternly of the way Mercedes moved her hips as she walked over. Her heart was pounding by the time she got to his table and gently placed the wine menu in front of him. Montello took a long time before he spoke. “It is unforgivable that the Madonna is showing her age,” he said, without looking at her.
“Senor Montello?”
Mercedes felt a dozen pairs of eyes burning into her back. Luigi fidgeted nervously as he watched her.
“The Madonna,” Montello said again. “Look how the cracks dissect her line of sight with the Christ child.”
She followed Montello’s gaze to the ceiling and noticed for the first time that widening cracks had split the fresco. The Virgin Mary and baby Jesus were separated by a deep chasm in the bone-dry plaster. Her cheeks reddened, though Mercedes wasn’t sure why and for a moment she was incapable of speech – a child again, on the day she was confronted by Sister Evangeline with her large book of Vatican art. The rotund nun could hardly contain her excitement as she retrieved the dusty tome and placed it on the desk in front of her young student. “The many faces of Christ,” she had said, and with eyes wide she opened the heavy book and looked to Mercedes.
Mercedes hadn’t known how to react at first. The paintings depicted in the old book seemed so sad, full of angels and people who looked like they were about to cry. Mercedes struggled to find meaning.
“Ghosts,” she had said simply after a moment passed.
“In a way, Mercedes…ghosts, yes.” The old nun smiled at her as she smoothed her long hair. “But they continue to speak to us in wonderful ways.” Sister Evangeline continued, “There’s a room in a museum where the Holy Father lives. Pinocoteca Vaticana.”
Mercedes tried to repeat the words but quickly surrendered.
“This painting is called Madonna di Foligno, can you say that?”
/> Mercedes fumbled the words and they both laughed. “Sorry, Sister.”
“It’s all right, child, I’m certain Raphael was a kind soul as well as a great artist. He would forgive you.”
Mercedes had spent the rest of the day with her nose in the dusty old book and Sister Evangeline had been pleased at how quickly she learned. “These paintings are so flat,” she had said, gently touching a photograph of one of the “primitives,” a series of Benedictine panels depicting the life of Saint Stephen.
“They were still learning about perspective then,” Evangeline had replied.
“Perspective,” Mercedes repeated. “And colour and light too, Sister.” She looked to the old nun for approval. “Raphael knew.”
Sister Evangeline had looked at her with surprise and said almost to herself, “Yes, child. Raphael understood.”
Mercedes was yanked back from her memories by Luigi’s cough. She saw Montello was still engrossed by the ceiling frescoes while the fingers on his left hand beat an expectant rhythm.
She tilted her head back. “My favourite has always been the Madonna di Foligno.”
Montello looked at her in surprise. “You know Raphael?”
“Only what I’ve seen from the Pinocoteca Vaticana,” she replied. “It’s more beautiful than anything.”
Montello smiled at her. “The ceiling needs restoration. Send the bill to me.”
A week later Luigi phoned her to tell her Senor Montello had called. A few guests were having dinner at his estate. Would she care to attend? If so, a car would be sent to collect her.
Mercedes waited a full day before responding, but eventually said yes. Why not? What’s dinner?
She wore something black and tight and Branko had been there to help her from the limo when it arrived at his vast estate. It was not her custom to fawn over wealth, but in Montello, she had seen something. Another lost soul perhaps. Mercedes suspected that beneath all his pretensions there was simply a good, honest and caring man. Maybe it was fantasy, which she was prone to. But then again, maybe not.
Dinner was more than she expected. White-gloved waiters delivered plate after plate of sumptuous food. The other dinner guests spoke in hushed tones, largely ignored by their host who had insisted Mercedes take the seat next to him. That night he mesmerized her with his knowledge of fine art, of Raphael and da Vinci and Pinturicchio. Once, he gently touched her hand to ask about the curious ring she wore – gold and jade in the shape of a tiny insect.
“It’s a firefly,” she replied, smiling. “It’s for good luck and I can tell you, in the restaurant business you need it.”
He listened intently as she spoke about DeMarco’s where she was manager. How she desperately wanted to open a restaurant of her own some day. In the meantime, Luigi was a good man who appreciated her abilities. He had given her a large measure of the credit for the two plaques in his office for Restaurant of the Year. Luigi’s wife was ill and he’d been musing lately about selling the place.
“It could be a great opportunity,” she told him, frowning. “But, I’m afraid, not within my reach right now.”
Branko had smiled at that. “Opportunities like that don’t come often, Mercedes. You just have to reach a little further.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said.
For a moment he appeared to be calculating something. “If you like I can have my accountant contact you,” he said. “He’s a genius when it comes to business plans and he’s constantly seeking out new and exciting investment opportunities for me.”
Mercedes could hardly believe her ears. “Are you serious?”
“Very,” he replied, pouring her more wine. “You’re good at what you do. I’ve already seen that. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be enjoying the bounty of your talent. DeMarco’s should be yours to own. If this is what you desire, it will happen.”
Without thinking, she kissed him, and for the remainder of the meal, Mercedes was too excited to speak. Owning her own restaurant had been her lifelong dream. All of a sudden that dream had tangible qualities and the more she thought about it, the giddier she became.
Branko permitted her a few moments of solitary excitement, turning to speak to the guest on the other side of him.
Mercedes decided at that moment that it would be possible. It was only recently that she’d spied the brochure in Luigi’s office promoting some retirement complex on the Costa del Sol in Spain. It would be more than stupid not to approach him before someone else did, snapping up DeMarco’s right from under her. It was too infuriating to think about. She decided then and there to have a long talk with Luigi about his plans. A smile swept her face. Ecstatic, she picked up her glass and toasted silently the opportunity which had been laid in her lap.
Montello’s car came often. Dinners turned into weekends during which they rarely left the estate, except to shop at the local market for fresh produce and meat. Mercedes preferred to do the cooking so on those occasions she insisted the kitchen staff be given the night off.
Once, Montello brought her to the Plaza de San Pedro Claver where the Museo de Arte Moderno stood empty two hours after closing. The curator had greeted them personally and had bowed as Montello stepped through the door so he and Mercedes would have the museum to themselves.
Mercedes had been standing in front of the softly lit painting by Fernando Botero, a life-size portrait of a fleshy small-breasted woman toweling herself dry next to her bathtub.
“Have you ever been to Buenos Aires, Mercedes Mendoza,” Branko had asked her.
“Of course not,” she had replied. “Why would I go to Buenos Aires?”
Montello laughed softly as he came up behind her. “I suppose you’re right.” He touched her long hair and leaned inwards to smell the scent of her perfume.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
“This one is by Alejandro Obregon,” Montello said after a while, pointing at another work. “He was born here.”
Mercedes enjoyed the art and was impressed by what seemed to be Branko’s limitless knowledge of remarkable painters. But it also made her feel small in his company, as if she were still twelve years old and asking Sister Evangeline to explain the pictures in her dusty old book.
They spent another hour in the art museum with Montello playing tour guide, but then Mercedes was famished.
“I’ve hired a new chef from Florence,” she told him. “His name is Juliano and he’s a genius.”
“Then we’ll have to test him,” Branko said, leading her through the huge wooden archway that brought them outside again.
When they returned to the car, Branko seemed suddenly sullen, a mysterious sadness that Mercedes had seen in him a couple of times before.
They drove past an old convent located in the same plaza as the museum. Its monumental size had struck Mercedes and the beauty of its tree-filled courtyard. As a child she and Father Govia had once passed it on their way to a doctor’s appointment in the old city.
Montello was watching her now.
“An old monk they called the Apostle of the Blacks lived there,” Montello said flatly. “Spent his miserable life helping the slaves.”
“A good man,” Mercedes had reasoned, oblivious to Branko’s derogatory tone.
Montello looked at her with a coolness that matched perfectly the temperature inside the air-conditioned limo. “An idiot,” he said, “who ministered to niggers.”
He may as well have struck her, so offended was she by the remark and the hatred that coated it.
How could a man who loved the beauty created by the great masters believe such a thing? She was about to challenge him, but thought better of it. Branko had dark moments, and a lonely quality for which Mercedes found compassion without judgment. But never, ever would she find empathy.
He kept his business to himself, spending long periods of time in a magnificent study that was off limits to everyone but Hernan, his manservant, and occasionally a maid who brought his meals.
> Mercedes had asked him once what he did for so long in his study. “Don’t bother yourself with things that are not your concern,” he had replied tersely.
Still, Mercedes’ curiosity would not allow her that luxury.
“You don’t even know for sure what he does for a living,” Selena had once challenged.
“An art dealer,” Mercedes responded, not believing it completely.
In the beginning coca was a possibility that Mercedes had quickly discounted. Branko made more trips to Florence and Rome than to Medellin and Cali where cocaine was brokered like sugar cane and mangos. He was a director at the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence, honours normally reserved for men much older. The newspaper described him as South America’s premier broker for renaissance and religious art. The daily in Bogotá referred to him simply as “The Dealer.”
Selena had looked at her incredulously. “What art dealer has bodyguards and his own helicopter?”
Although Branko spoke very little about his business, he seemed engrossed by it. Mercedes was an attractive woman, a knockout, many would say. Yet, Montello seemed to find more sensuality in his paintings. He had not once tried to bed her. Mercedes didn’t mind. Intimacy would have been a sticky intrusion. It was her ambition to own DeMarco’s which dampened her better instincts.
Luigi hadn’t given her a firm answer yet, but she had seen it in his eyes. “Two matadors I have seen gored in Malaga. The most robust and deadly bulls in all of Spain,” he had said. “Maybe it is time to become so pampered and fat.”
The next day, Mercedes spoke for an hour with Branko’s accountant, a man named Kovak. He told her papers were to be drawn up. Lawyers would soon become involved. She’d have no need of a banker.
She would have been even more thrilled were it not for the uneasiness she felt during her frequent visits to Branko’s estate. She found herself under constant surveillance, and even when she sunbathed beside the Olympic-size swimming pool she felt violated by human and electronic eyes. There were armed men patrolling the grounds, making her wonder whether she was in any danger just by being there.
