The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos

by Margaret Mascarenhas

  When Carlos Alberto had started supplying stories to the television producers of soap operas for extra cash, he never imagined he might wind up living in one.

  It is the fifth day since the statue of Maria Lionza broke in two, and everything related to the goddess has become a national obsession, fueled by an unremitting media frenzy. There are constant flash bulletins and updates, opinions are polled and dissected. Is the broken statue a metaphor for the political and economic divide in the country? Is it an omen, and if so, what does it portend? Should the statue be moved to a new location for repairs or should it be repaired on site? Who actually has jurisdiction over the statue—the Ministry of Art and Culture or the Municipality? Is the worship of Maria Lionza a religion or a cult? Clashes between factions with opposing views on these questions have broken out all over the country.

  In a related story, the media is excitedly reporting that an apparition called El Niño is supposed to have materialized out of thin air before a group of Marialionceros in Sorte. Cut to a clip of the president, announcing the launch of a new educational reform campaign. The details of its aims are vague, but its slogan is : “¡El Niño, el Futuro!”

  While Carlos Alberto is watching, the phone rings. It is a producer at TVista requesting permission to use segments from his documentary interviews with various Marialionceros as background on the evening news. Carlos Alberto is rendered almost speechless by the amount they are willing to pay for it: one million Bolívares. Seeing a chance to resolve all his financial problems in one fell swoop, he accepts their proposal on one condition: that they also give him a contract to conduct interviews with those claiming to have seen El Niño for a total of three million.

  “And the copyright is mine,” he says, nearly bowled over by his own audaciousness. Yes, fine, great, brilliant, says the British producer, we’ll send the contract papers across by this afternoon. If Carlos Alberto believed in prayer, this would be its answer. And yet, what if something were to happen to Lily while he is away? Are three million bolos worth that risk? He is conflicted, thrown against the ropes of his own inner boxing match.

  “Of course you must not miss this opportunity, mi amor,” says Lily. “And take my father with you; he knows people everywhere.”

  “But what about you and the baby?

  “Don’t worry, it’s only for a few days. I’ll be fine here with all these babysitters.” But Carlos Alberto thinks it is possible she is just being brave.

  “You should tell a story to your baby before you go,” says Marta, while Luz cackles wickedly.

  “Why not?” says Carlos Alberto, glaring at Luz. “After all, storytelling is my métier.”

  So, on the fifth day of the Novena to Maria Lionza, Carlos Alberto tells of how much of an ass he was willing to make of himself in order to get Lily to notice him.

  The first time Carlos Alberto saw Lily, she was standing at a honey stand on a cobblestone street in the German settlement of Colonia Tovar, which lies hidden in the mountains some 60 kilometers west of the capital.

  Lily, whose name he did not know, of course, at the time wore a white sleeveless summer dress of fine muslin that fell beguilingly, ending in a flutter around her narrow ankles. Her small feet were delicately bound in flat bronze sandals with spidery straps. Her tiny round toes, with nails varnished in clear polish, were so alluring that he felt a desperate and urgent desire to place them, one by one, in his mouth. A slight chill pierced the air as afternoon moved into evening, and, tearing his gaze away from those succulent buds, he noticed little goose bumps standing out on her thin forearms. The sunset shone through her dress, outlining her slender thighs, the gentle curve of her calves. It caught wisps of her shoulder-length brown-black hair, spinning them into shimmering threads that swirled distractedly in the summer breeze. She was looking down, rummaging in her white crochet handbag, her lashes making dark quarter moons against the vanilla of her skin. Then, as she bent lower, digging deeper in her handbag, her hair fell across her face and it was all he could do not to reach out and brush it back. Finding enough change for the honey vendor in the bowels of her bag, Lily straightened before he could act on his insane impulse, tossing back her hair and revealing a few stray freckles on her nose.

  (Not freckles, birthmarks, says Lily.)

  Carlos Alberto followed Lily like a detective as she walked along the lanes of the village, hiding behind his newspaper when she stopped to window-shop. She made her way to the beveled lawns of the Fritz, a middle-range inn, but more expensive than his own, and sat down on a chaise lounge in the shade of a tree, next to a couple who looked to be around sixty-five years of age. The older woman was painting a watercolor with a child’s paint set. The older man was strumming a cuatro and serenading her. Carlos Alberto decided these were the girl’s grandparents. He was already making up stories about her by then, and he continued to do so throughout the afternoon from his perch on a stone wall in the sun.

  So captivated was Carlos Alberto by this girl that when he returned to his room that night, images of her continued to flash through his mind. Even after several glasses of rum, even after he fell asleep, she continued to haunt him, appearing suddenly, unbidden, in his dreams and evaporating just as quickly.

  On the second day of his vacation in Colonia Tovar, he awoke early. He shaved and dressed with lightning speed and rushed out into the misty morning, slipping and sliding through the damp cobblestone lanes to the grounds of the Fritz. Perhaps, he thought, he would be able to catch sight of her at breakfast. He found an inconspicuous corner table in the small wood-paneled restaurant the hotel management ran for its guests. When he ordered coffee, the waiter asked him which room he was staying in, and he was forced to confess that he was not a guest of the Fritz. The waiter’s face took on a pained and offended expression.

  “This restaurant is for guests only, Señor,” he informed Carlos Alberto.

  Carlos Alberto assured him that he was there to ascertain whether this was the hotel he wanted to stay in, that the quality of the coffee was very important to him in determining where he would stay. From his manner, Carlos Alberto doubted the waiter believed him—this was a family hotel, and Carlos Alberto was clearly a young man all on his own. It may have been the desperation in Carlos Alberto’s voice that made the waiter decide to serve him a coffee. It was a much more expensive coffee than one obtainable at any kiosk in the lanes of Colonia Tovar. But it was worth it. For, a few minutes later, Lily entered the room, even more fresh and beautiful than he remembered. He remained with her—well not with her, but with her in view—throughout most of the day. It was a rather uneventful day, during which Lily made only one foray into the town, to purchase a cuckoo clock, for which the artisans of the colony are famous. It did occur to him that the real cuckoo was himself, or at least that is what his friend Ricardo would say when he returned to the city and recounted what he had been up to. But at that moment Carlos Alberto was ecstatic in his madness, and he could hardly wait to fall into bed so he could dream of the girl with the brown-black hair and rosebud toes. But again, he could not fall asleep without the aid of plentiful cups of rum.

  The next morning was Easter Sunday. He wanted to attend the eight a.m. Mass at the chapel on the square because he thought he might see his fantasy girl there and perhaps be able to make her acquaintance. He stumbled, hungover, from the lumpy bed at the Viejo Aleman and made his way to the bathroom, where a leprous visage confronted him in the mirror above the washbasin. Could this be his face? He remembered having applied Coppertone sunblock at some point during the previous day. Clearly, the application had been uneven. And now his face was covered with alternately beet red and creamy white patches. This did not bode well for romance. He briefly considered makeup. Certainly, he had had enough experience with its application during his childhood. But there would probably be no shops open on Easter Sunday. He compromised with the Panama hat his father had given him, pulling it down low over his forehead, where the worst bits of seared flesh were localize
d. His sisters had always assured him that he was handsome in a roguish way. Now he looked like a gangster, but this was a distinct improvement over the unedited version.

  After the Mass, the congregation spilled into the square. Carlos Alberto was relieved to notice that the object of his affection and heightened desire was without familial encumbrance. He was in the process of summoning enough nerve to approach her when he heard her cry out, her mouth making a surprised and exquisite circle of pain. She had twisted her ankle on the uneven cobblestones of the church square. Carlos Alberto sprinted to her assistance, solicitously guiding her back to her hotel, insisting that she put her weight on him as they went. She said she didn’t know how to thank him. He responded by saying that he was completely lost in Colonia Tovar and didn’t know where to eat, and that if she was feeling better by evening, perhaps she could accompany him to a decent restaurant. To his delight, she agreed.

  As soon as he had her captive in a corner booth at the restaurant quaintly known as El pequeño Alemán, he wanted to come clean. Without prologue, he admitted to her that he had stalked her for three days since his arrival at Colonia Tovar. He confessed to her how he had completely humiliated and demeaned himself by lying and pretending to be lost, too ignorant to find a restaurant where he could get a meal and a cup of coffee, even though there was one on every street corner, all of which were fairly good. He said his friend Ricardo was a third-year medical student specializing in obstetrics who had a different woman on his arm each month, and was his love guru. He said Ricardo had told him that women love men who are lost, and that he had decided he had nothing to lose. As soon as he said all this, he regretted it; he was sure the girl would think him psychotic, or worse, pitiful—the biggest pendejo she had ever met. He became quiet, staring glumly into his untouched marroncito, as if his salvation resided in a demitasse.

  “Well, it worked,” she said simply, and began chattering away about the first time she had visited Colonia Tovar when she was thirteen with her school friend Irene Dos Santos. He didn’t know it at the time, so easy was her banter, but she told him later that whenever she is nervous, re-creating her childhood has the salubrious effect of a tranquilizer.

  A bit to his own surprise, Carlos Alberto doesn’t feel stupid while telling this story to his unborn child. And while he certainly does not believe in Maria Lionza, a small secret part of him almost wishes he did.

  “Incidentally, you never told me why you were so nervous that day at the restaurant,” Carlos Alberto murmurs, later, just before falling asleep on the floor next to his wife’s makeshift bed in the living room.

  “Because I knew I was going to sleep with you,” Lily says.

  The first time they had made love, it had been unplanned, and Carlos Alberto had been afraid. He was so large and she was so small. He thought he might hurt her and she wouldn’t want him again. But by the time this thought had completed itself, his body had taken charge and he was already pushing impatiently against a resilient barrier. Lily’s eyes had been squeezed shut, her eyelashes wet, her breathing uneven. She cried out, but clenched him to herself, locking her legs around his back. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he gasped, his mind mortified, his senses bursting with delight. He sobbed as he plunged deeper and deeper, straining to reach the pinnacle, unable to pull back, to relinquish pleasure even at the cost of her pain. He felt himself a beast.

  Afterward it had been Lily who was the consoler. She held his head against her breast, puffing pensively on an Astor, while the blood seeped into the sheets, and said, “If it had been up to my friend Irene, that barrier would have been broken a long time ago. My darling, I’m so glad I waited for you.”

  And with those words he became her slave. Months later, when she could not conceive, she said they should tell her mother. He had been appalled. “How can you discuss this most intimate thing with your mother?” he asked.

  “My mother taught me that secrets are sicknesses,” she replied. “When I need help and advice, I consult my mother. I can tell my mother anything.”

  “Anything?”

  “Yes, mi amor. Anything and everything. You must get accustomed to that. In my family, we are constantly in each other’s business.”

  Before long, Carlos Alberto himself was telling Consuelo everything, the words gushing from his lips like water from a broken tap. It wasn’t so much that Consuelo had all the answers, it was just that he was finally voicing his questions. Questions had never been encouraged in his own family. In the Quintanilla household, only obedience and silent stoicism had been rewarded.

  Dr. Jorge Quintanilla sold his home in Tamanaco and bought one in the hills of the Western province a few months after he retired from the cardiology department at Los Aves. But, almost before he’d had time to experience the freedom, and perhaps the boredom, of retirement, a sudden and massive stroke knocked him senseless on the golf green, and now he lay immobile in one of the beautifully appointed guest rooms, surrounded by medicine bottles and tubes, his eyes half open but unmoving, recognizing no one and no thing. He had turned into his own worst nightmare, for there can be nothing more galling to a doctor than for the doctor to become the patient.

  They had already been married a year before Carlos Alberto took Lily to his parents’ home. They arrived in time for lunch, a boisterous affair including his mother, his sisters, their spouses and children, during which, as usual, everyone spoke at once. Carlos Alberto was somewhat apprehensive about how Lily, an only child, would tolerate it. But she sat at the table, turning her head this way and that, trying to catch with her small ears all the words flying randomly around the dining room, smiling with delight. Later, they went to look in on his father. Carlos Alberto stood in the doorway watching his father’s chest rise and fall. Asshole.

  Unlike himself, who continued to stand rigid in the doorway, Lily was not revolted and not afraid to approach the shell of a man that had once been his father. She had bent down and kissed him lightly on the forehead. And Carlos Alberto thought how proud and relieved Jorge Quintanilla would have been, had he been able to see Lily, irrefutable proof that in spite of the choice to pursue a career in what he had oft referred to as “pansy work”—teaching and writing documentary film—his son was, after all, a man. For the first time, Carlos Alberto felt something bordering on pity for his father, an expert on hearts, who knew not his own.

  The next day, they boarded the teleférico, which whisked them up to 3,500 meters in a matter of minutes. Beyond stood the snow-capped Pico Bolívar, swathed in clouds. They held hands and were quiet on the way back down. The crisp smell of snow had given them a sudden urge for ice cream. And so, upon their return to the town, they stopped by Helados Tibisay, famous for its unusual flavors, where they surrendered to their childish fancy. Lily tried the celery, while Carlos Alberto opted for black beans. From there, they drove to Los Frijoles, their hotel, and spent the next three days making love, interspersed with bouts of holding their noses and blowing till their ears popped, in an attempt to relieve the pressure from the high altitude.

  On the fourth day they walked all the way to Laguna Victoria, carrying a small but well-stocked picnic basket and a blanket. Lily did not swim, but she said she would not mind if Carlos Alberto wanted to take a dip. Carlos Alberto swam with strong, smooth strokes, feeling the water ripple over his back, oblivious to the fact that as his figure gradually diminished from his wife’s perspective, she was becoming extremely agitated. When he turned back, she was waving her blue and green silk scarf in the air, and when he reached the shore, her eyes were rimmed in red and the features of her face taut with an anguish he could not fathom.

  “But, what is wrong, mi amor?” he asked her, the expression in her eyes wrenching his stomach with fear.

  “You looked so small in the water,” Lily said, forcing a smile to blanched lips. And then, lying on the grass with the dew seeping through the wool of the blanket, she lay her head upon his chest and told her about her dream in which she and her friend Irene
Dos Santos had gone for a swim in the lagoon too soon after lunch, developed cramps, and drowned. Since then, Lily said, she was afraid of deep waters.

  Early on in their relationship, there were occasions when Carlos Alberto considered the possibility that Lily may be “not all there” in a charming, nonthreatening sort of way, and he had strongly suspected that Irene Dos Santos was just a figment of her imagination. But this suspicion was laid to rest by his mother-in-law, Consuelo, who told him that Irene had been Lily’s best friend in school. Apparently they had lost touch with one another at some stage during their school years, or so Consuelo gave him to understand. Precisely when and how this occurred continues to elude him. Lily herself has never discussed it and Consuelo, without his even noticing it, changes the subject whenever it comes up.

  It occurs to Carlos Alberto that when women don’t want to answer a question at a particular point in time, they somehow manage to make you forget you ever asked.

  After a spirited discussion about the pros and cons of traveling to Sorte via Valencia or by the Nirgua mountain route, it is finally decided that they will go through Valencia. When Luz asks whether she can accompany Carlos Alberto and Ismael, he raises no objection, though he is not particularly keen on the idea. Luz can be such a pain in the ass. He thinks he knows why she wants to go: Valencia is where her estranged husband, Miguel Rojas, lives. Well, if Luz fancies the application of salt on her wounds, who is he to say no?

  Ismael is quiet, as is Luz, who had insisted on driving. She steers Ismael’s prehistoric automobile on the autopista at a speed that makes the hair on Carlos Alberto’s forearms stand on end, and drives nonstop to the outskirts of Valencia. There, they have lunch and rest for an hour under the shade of an umbrella at an outdoor café. While Carlos Alberto is paying the bill, Luz tries to phone Miguel at a booth across the road. When she returns, her eyes are red, and both Ismael and Carlos Alberto discreetly pretend they haven’t noticed.