The Listening Walls

by Margaret Millar

  “I wait, Consuela Gonzales.”

  “I have attended to all the rooms except 404. I was pre­pared to do that one too, but when I stopped at the door I heard noises from inside.”

  “Noises? How so?”

  “People were arguing. I thought it would be wiser if I didn’t disturb them, if I waited until they went out for the evening.”

  “People were arguing in 404?”

  “Yes. Americans. Two American ladies.”

  “You swear it on your mother’s body?”

  “I do, señor.”

  “Oh, what a liar you are, Consuela Gonzales.” Esca­millo put his hand over his heart to show how much the situation pained him. “Or else you have lost your judg­ment.”

  “I heard them, I tell you.”

  “You tell me, yes. Now I tell you. The suite 404 is empty. It has been empty for nearly a week.”

  “That can’t be. I heard, with my own ears. . .”

  “Then you need new ears. Four hundred four is empty. I am the manager of this establishment. Who would know better than I which rooms are occupied and which are not?”

  “Perhaps, while you were away from the desk for a few minutes, someone checked in, two American ladies.”

  “Impossible.”

  “I know what I hear.” Consuela’s cheeks were the color of red wine as if the blood in her veins had fermented with fury.

  “This is bad,” Escamillo said, “to hear things other people do not.”

  “You haven’t tried. If you would place your ear here, at the wall . . .”

  “Very well. The ear is here. And now?”

  “Listen.”

  “I am listening.”

  “They are moving around,” Consuela said. “One of them is wearing many bracelets, you can hear them clank­ing. There. Now they are talking. Do you hear voices?”

  “Certainly I hear voices.” Escamillo stepped briskly out of the broom closet, brushing lint off the sleeves and lapels of his suit. “I hear your voice and my voice. From an empty room I hear nothing, praise Jesus.”

  “The room is not empty, I tell you.”

  “And I tell you once again, stop this nonsense, Con­suela Gonzales. I think you have not been saying your beads often enough lately and God is angry with you, making noises that you alone can hear.”

  “I have done nothing to make Him angry with me.”

  “We are all sinners.” But Escamillo’s tone implied strongly that Consuela Gonzales was the worst of the lot and she was to expect only a minimum of mercy, if any. “You had better go down to the bar and ask Emilio for one of those new American pills that ease the mind.”

  “There is nothing the matter with my mind.”

  “Is there not? Well, I am too busy to argue.”

  She leaned against the door of the broom closet and watched Escamillo disappear into the elevator. Globules of sweat and oil stood out on her forehead and upper lip. She brushed them off with a corner of her apron, think­ing, he is trying to frighten me, embarrass me, make me out a fool. I will not be made out a fool. It is easy to prove the room is occupied. I have a key. I will unlock the door, very quietly, and open it, very suddenly, and there they will be, arguing, moving around. Two ladies. Americans.

  Her ring of keys, suspended from a rope belt around her waist, struck her thigh and tinkled like coins as she moved toward 404. She hesitated at the door, hearing nothing now but the traffic from the avenida below and the quick rhythmical drumming of her own heart.

  Only a month ago, two American ladies had occupied this very room. They too had argued. One of them wore many bracelets and a red silk suit, and painted her eye­lids gold. And the other . . .

  But I must not think of those two. One is dead, the other is far away. I am alive and here.

  From her key ring she chose the key labeled apartamientos and inserted it quietly into the lock. A quick turn of the key to the left and of the doorknob to the right and the door would open to reveal the occupants of the room and Escamillo would be proved the cowardly liar that he was.

  The key would not turn. She tried one hand and then the other, and finally both together. She was a strong woman, used to heavy work, but the key wouldn’t budge.

  She rapped sharply on the door and called out, “This is the chambermaid. I must change the towels. Please let me in. I have lost my key. Please open the door? Please?”

  She caught her lower lip with her teeth to stop its trembling. The room is empty, she thought. Escamillo is right, God is punishing me. I hear voices no one else can hear, I talk to people who are not there, I listen at walls that say nothing.

  She hesitated only long enough to cross herself. Then she turned and ran down the corridor to the service stair­way. In flight, she tried to pray. Her mouth moved but no words came out, and she knew it was because she had not said her beads for a long time; she could not even remember where she had put them.

  Four flights down, and she was in the little room be­hind the bar where Emilio and his assistants came to sneak cigarettes and finish off the dregs of bottles and count the day’s tips.

  She had made so much noise crashing down the steps that Emilio himself hurried back to see what the fuss was about.

  “Oh, it’s you.” Emilio was bold and elegant in a new red bolero trimmed with silver buttons and orange braid. “I thought it was another earthquake. What do you want?”

  She sat down on an empty beer case and held her head in her hands.

  “How’s Joe?” Emilio said.

  The American was waiting in Escamillo’s office, pac­ing up and down as if he couldn’t find a door to escape through. He looked worried, as worried as Escamillo felt. Escamillo, from the beginning, had had grave doubts about the situation, but Mr. Dodd was very persuasive. He’d made the plan sound both reasonable and practi­cable.

  Escamillo was afraid it was neither, although so far he hadn’t indicated his misgivings. He said simply, “Every­thing is in readiness. They are arguing very well to­gether, very real.”

  “And Consuela is listening?”

  “Certainly. Listening, it is a long habit with her.”

  “Did you have the lock changed?”

  “Just as I was instructed, so everything has been per­formed. She can gain access to the room only when the ladies are ready to receive her. Also, the silver box—I gave it to Emilio as you told me to do. However, I do not understand about the silver box. Why was it necessary to purchase an exact duplicate? I begin to wonder.” Escamillo’s face, normally as bland as a marshmallow, was contorted in anticipation of disaster. “I begin to have doubts.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Señor?”

  “We all have doubts,” Dodd said flatly. “Let’s just hope hers are bigger.”

  “She is not a fool, you know. A cheat, a liar, a thief, all those, but not a fool.”

  “She’s superstitious and she’s scared.”

  “She is scared, ha! And who is not? I feel my liver turn­ing cold and white like snow.”

  “There’s nothing to be scared of. Your part in this is finished.”

  “I must remind you that this is my hotel, my reputa­tion is at stake, I am responsible for. . .” The tele­phone on Escamillo’s desk began to ring. He darted across the room and picked it up. His small pudgy hands were quivering. “Yes? That is good, very good.” He put the phone down and said to Dodd, “It has worked so far. She is with Emilio. He is very clever, you can trust him.”

  “I have to.”

  “Señor Kellogg will be here soon?”

  “He’s waiting in the lobby now.”

  “Suppose there is violence? Violence distresses me.” Escamillo pressed his hand against his stomach. “You have not taken me entirely into your confidence,
senor. A little voice keeps telling me that there is something questionable about all this, perhaps even something il­legal.”

  A little voice kept telling Dodd the same thing but he couldn’t afford to listen.

  “How is Joe?” Emilio repeated.

  “Joe?” She raised her head and stared at him blankly. For a moment the blankness was genuine—Joe was long ago and far away and dead. “Joe who?”

  “You know Joe who.”

  “Oh, him. I haven’t seen him. He was no good. He ran off with another woman.”

  “An American?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He sent me 250 pesos that he owed me. It was marked on the envelope, San Francisco.”

  “Ah, so? Well, I hope she is very rich so he will be very happy.”

  There’d been two rich ladies, Consuela thought. They were ready to be plucked like chickens, but all Joe got out of it was a second-hand car and a few clothes to be buried in, because he lost his nerve, he began feeling sorry for people. His mind had turned soft as his belly.

  No, no, I must not think of that, of the blood . . .

  “What happens with you?” Emilio said. “You look bad, like a ghost.”

  “I have a—a headache.”

  “Perhaps you would like a bottle of beer?”

  “Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  “Do not thank me so hard,” Emilio said dryly. “I ex­pect you to pay.”

  “I will pay. I have money.”

  She thought, I have money I can’t spend, clothes I can’t wear; I have bottles of perfume, yet I must go around smelling like a goat. You would steal the smell off a goat, Joe had said.

  It seemed funny to her now. She began to laugh softly, cupping her mouth in her hands so that no one would hear her and want to know why she was laughing. It would be too hard to explain; she wasn’t quite sure of the reason herself.

  Emilio returned carrying a bottle of cheap beer. He gave her the beer, then held out his hand for the money. She put a peso in it, grudgingly, as if it were her last.

  “This,” he said, “is not enough.”

  “It is all I have.”

  “I hear different. I hear you had a winning ticket last week.”

  “No.”

  “This is what I hear, that you took all your money and hid it away. If this is so. . .”

  “And it is not.”

  “But suppose it is. Then you are in luck, because I have a fine bargain for you.”

  “I have seen too many of your fine bargains.”

  “Not like this.” From one of the higher shelves behind the door Emilio took an object wrapped in a copy of Grafico. He removed the newspaper and held out, for her to see, a box of hammered silver. “A beauty, is it not?”

  She pressed the cold bottle against her burning fore­head like a poultice.

  “As you can see,” Emilio said, “it has a damage, a dent. That is why I am offering it at the absurd price of two hundred pesos. Go on, take it, feel its weight. It’s gen­uine silver, as heavy as a mourner’s heart, and what could be heavier than that, eh, Consuela?”

  “Where,” she said, “where did you get it?”

  “Ah, that is my little secret.”

  “You must tell me. I must know.”

  “Very well. I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “A lady left it behind in the bar, on one of the seats.”

  “What lady?”

  “If I knew the lady I would return the box,” he said severely. “I am an honest man, I would never keep what belongs to another, never. But,” he added with a shrug, “since I do not know the lady’s name, and since she looked very rich, with many gold bracelets, yes, even gold on her eyelids . . .”

  The telephone rang in 404. Both the women jumped, as if they’d heard a shot. Then the one in the red silk suit crossed the room and picked up the telephone. “Yes?”

  “She’ll be back up soon,” Dodd said. “Leave the door partly open so she can get in. Is Mrs. Kellogg all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m nervous. I feel so grotesque in this getup, with all this paint on. I don’t know if I can go through with it.”

  “You have to, Pat.”

  “But I’m not an actress. How can I fool her?”

  “Because she’s ready to be fooled. The others have done their part—Escamillo, Emilio. Now it’s your turn. Kellogg will be there shortly. So will I. I’ll be in the other room, so don’t worry.”

  “All right,” Miss Burton said. “All right.” She put down the telephone and looked across the room at the woman sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds. “She’s coming up soon. We must be ready.”

  “Oh God,” Amy whispered. “I’m not sure. Even now, I’m not sure.”

  “Everyone else is. All of us. We’re sure.”

  “How can you be, if I’m not?”

  “Because we know you and your character. We know you couldn’t possibly . . .”

  “But I tell you, sometimes I remember, I remember quite clearly. I picked up the silver box, I was going to throw it over the balcony as Wilma had challenged me to do. She tried to grab the box from me, and we strug­gled, and then I hit . . .”

  “You can’t remember what didn’t happen,” Miss Bur­ton said sturdily.

  “. . . and a beautiful silk suit,” Emilio said, “the color of blood. My most favorite color. Your most favorite too, Consuela?”

  She didn’t hear the question. She was staring at the silver box as if it contained all the imps of hell. “The woman who left it, you said you’d never seen her before?”

  “Wrong. I told you I did not know her name. Of course I have seen her before. She and her friend, one night in the bar they had a long talk with Joe, very gay, very merry, lots of tequila.”

  “No. I don’t believe you. It’s not possible.”

  “Ask Joe,” Emilio said, “next time you see him.”

  “I won’t be—seeing him.”

  “Ah, you might be surprised. One of these days you might open a door, expecting nothing, and there he’ll be . . .”

  “No, that is imposs—”

  “There he’ll be, the same as ever, as good as new.” Emilio was grinning nervously. “And he’ll say, ‘Here I am, Consuela, I have come back to you and your warm bed and I will never leave you again. Always I will be at your side, you will never get rid of me.’ “

  “Quiet,” she screamed. “Pig. Liar.” She was holding the bottle of beer by the neck as if she intended to use it to silence him. The beer gurgled out on the wooden floor and through the cracks, leaving a trail of bubbles. “He will never come back.”

  Emilio’s grin had disappeared and a white line of fear circled his dry mouth. “Very well. He will never come back. I do not argue with a lady with so many muscles and a bad temper.”

  “The box—the woman—it’s all a trick.”

  “How do you mean this, a trick? I do not play tricks.”

  “Señor Kellogg gave you that box. And there is no such woman as you claim.”

  Emilio looked genuinely puzzled. “I know no Senor Kellogg. As for the woman, well, I saw what I saw. My eyes are not liars. She and her little brown-haired friend came in about 5:30. I served them myself. I said, ‘Good afternoon, señoras, it is a great pleasure to see you once more. Have you been away?’ And the señora in the blood- colored suit said, ‘Yes, I have been away on a long, long journey. I never thought I would get back, but here I am, here I am again.’ “

  “My beads,” she said, and the beer bottle dropped from her hand and rolled, unbroken, across the wooden floor. “I must find my beads. The closet—perhaps I left them in the closet. I must go and find them.
My beads . . . Hail Mary, full of Grace...”

  Rupert and Dodd waited in the bedroom.

  “A devil on the one hand,” Rupert said, “and a delu­sion on the other. And I was trapped between them. I could do nothing but stall for time, keep Amy hidden away until she was able to think clearly again, to distin­guish between what had happened and what Consuela claimed had happened. I had to keep her hidden not only from the police but from her family or anyone else she might try to ‘confess’ to. I couldn’t afford the risk of some­body believing her confession. There were times I almost believed it myself, it was so sincere and so plausible. But I knew my wife, I knew her to be incapable of violence against another human being.

  “Consuela’s lies started the delusion, but it was aggra­vated by Amy’s own feeling of worthlessness. All her life she had suffered from a nameless guilt. Now Consuela had given it a name, murder. And Amy accepted it, be­cause it is sometimes easier to accept one specific thing, no matter how bad, than to go on living with a lot of ob­scure and indefinite fears. But there were other reasons too for her acceptance. She was beginning to feel hostil­ity toward Wilma and to resent Wilma’s domination. These feelings were later translated into guilt. Also, re­member that Amy was drunk, and consequently had no clear recollection of the facts to counteract Consuela’s false version of them.”

  “You claim it’s false,” Dodd interrupted. “But are you sure?”

  “If I weren’t sure, would I have confided in you and put myself at your mercy? Would I have brought you and Amy down here, dragged Miss Burton into this, broken any number of laws? Believe me, Mr. Dodd, I’m sure. It’s Amy who isn’t. That’s why we’re here now. We can’t let her spend the rest of her life thinking that she killed her best friend. She didn’t. I know that, I knew it from the first.”

  “Then why didn’t you give Consuela a quick, firm brushoff?”

  “I couldn’t. By the time I reached Amy at the hospital, the damage had already been done. Amy was convinced she was guilty and Consuela stuck to her story. If it had been a simple matter of dealing with the girl alone, there would have been no problem. But there was Amy too. And on my side, I had no evidence at all, only my knowledge of my wife’s character. Bear in mind, also, that we were in a foreign country. I was completely ignorant of police procedure, of what the authorities might do to Amy if they believed her confession.”