Alegría thought the Indian chauffeur exemplified the worst characteristics possessed by the Indian. He had listened to every word Menardo or Alegría said, from the airport to the dress shop, to the moment he opened the door of the Mercedes for them in front of the Royal Hotel. He not only made eye contact with his social superiors, this Indian alternately had mocking, then knowing, eyes. Alegría hated what he had said with his eyes as she was escorted off the wretched plane by the captain. Tacho had looked right at her as if to say, “The captain wants to reach right into your panties.” As he held the car door outside the hotel, Alegría had glanced up and to her horror saw the Indian was smiling as if he knew she was going to seduce his boss later that afternoon.
MARBLE STAIRWAY
ALEGRÍA HAD BEEN IN Mexico City, quarreling with Bartolomeo over the affair she had been having with Menardo, when the shocking message had arrived. Iliana was dead. The accident could be traced back to the first afternoon Menardo ever spent with Alegría, and their visit to the building site on the edge of suburban Tuxtla where a last hilltop of jungle trees and vegetation had persisted. The light that shone down on the site had been magical. It was the most luminous and soothing sunlight Alegría had ever seen. When she commented on it, Menardo had been quick to point out the southern climes had much to offer a person who had spent most of her life farther north. It was true. She had hated the winters in Madrid. Sometimes she thought she might die before the overcast and the wet winds passed. Sometimes she had borrowed money from another student and simply fled on the train to the sun and the ocean in the South. Alegría had nodded, still looking with wonder at the wide, flat jungle leaves and the fretwork of the innumerable vines and delicate mosses, which transformed the blinding tropical light into a light which was soft but which illuminated all crevices with a glow of pearls. The quality of the light instantly became Alegría’s focus. Whatever Iliana and Menardo said they wanted—entryways, carports, closets, whirlpool baths—Alegría scrutinized to determine how these details or items might be built without interfering with the quality of the light. It had been for this special light that the fatal marble stairway had been designed. The high wall of glass in the conservatory would supply the cascades of glowing white light.
Iliana and Alegría got along surprisingly well. They had agreed on nearly every detail—from built-in appliances in the kitchen to the size of the storage closets on the second floor. Alegría won over Iliana completely when she presented the drawings for the wall of glass display cases for Iliana’s collections. Alegría made the journey from Mexico City twice each month during construction. Menardo could not reveal to Iliana and certainly not to Alegría that the cost overruns were beyond his wildest fears. It was during this time that Menardo began to notice burning sensations in his stomach, no matter what he ate for lunch. The doctor gave Menardo big bottles of liquid chalk to drink when he felt the burning. Dr. Gris asked if Menardo was under any unusual stress. Was anything going haywire at home or with the business? Dr. Gris had protruding eyes magnified many times behind thick glasses. When he asked these questions, he leaned close to Menardo’s face, smiling all the while, as if he knew everything. Menardo could smell the doctor’s sour breath, and the face seemed more frog than human. The froggy sounds their skin and bodies made in the sweat still embarrassed Menardo. Alegría was part of a different generation; the slap slap and suck suck sounds paralyzed him with embarrassment, but excited her to new heights. Menardo did not tell Dr. Gris about any of this, but the huge, bugging eyes seemed to miss no detail. At one time Menardo had been much closer to Dr. Gris. They had often golfed together with the former ambassador and the police chief. But after Menardo’s young secretary had needed the sudden confidential attention of Dr. Gris, they no longer saw each other socially. Menardo had felt betrayed. He had always given Dr. Gris a wholesale price on the night security patrol that kept the doctor’s estate secure from trespassers. The doctor’s bill had been itemized. Besides the initial test and consultation, and the “surgery,” Dr. Gris had added nearly ten thousand more for “confidentiality”—an item Menardo had assumed was part of the deal, after all the golf they’d played together. When Menardo had expressed shock at the bill, Dr. Gris had only smiled. His eyes protruded in proportion to the width of his smile. Gris told Menardo saving face in a town the size of Tuxtla Gutiérrez was expensive indeed. A little later, after Menardo had thought about it, he sent a statement to Dr. Gris indicating the price of security against burglars and trespassers had risen due to the revaluation of the peso. Dr. Gris had paid without question, and although Iliana still saw Dr. Gris, and Menardo had brought his nervous stomach to him, their golf games were no more.
Alegría and Iliana had ganged up on Menardo. Alegría saw the jungle as a distinctive feature the house should not deny. At first Iliana had wanted high walls to shut out the jungle. She had not even wanted windows facing east where the clearing gave way to thick vines trailing down from the limbs of giant jungle trees. But Alegría had worked patiently, explaining the glass and steel of the conservatory walls would be as secure as any wall, which of course was not true, but was the kind of reassurance that Iliana needed before she could move on. Alegría argued that in order for the marble stairs to create the effect of a cascade of light, a waterfall of jungle light down the polished marble, the entire east wall would have to be glass. The marble staircase branched from the midway landing up to the second-floor level where one could stand and gaze down into the masses of orchids and bromelaids Iliana collected for her conservatory. One could then turn to survey the great sala, which held four long dining tables for winter dinners and had electrical hookups in one corner for dance-band amplifiers. But as Alegría told them both in her breathless enthusiasm, no visitor would ever enter this house without immediately turning to the staircase and to the wall of glass and the lush green jungle vegetation outside the conservatory. Iliana had wanted something grand for her mansion, and the cascade of white marble stairs had been exactly what Iliana wanted. Guests would be forced to notice the conservatory, filled with her latest collecting interest, rare jungle orchids.
All the women Iliana lunched with at the club buzzed with excitement and envy. The judge’s wife wrinkled her brow slightly and said that the whole house plan and even the size of the swimming pool seemed “so very modern.” To which Iliana had smoothed the bodice of her linen dress and laughed. Of course the judge’s wife would not appreciate such a staircase. She weighed close to three hundred pounds and it would have been an ordeal for her. Certainly the judge’s wife had no use for the swimming pool—no bathing suit would fit her.
Iliana had been taught by her mother to pretend ignorance of those things that cannot be changed. She had picked up the telephone before and had made trouble for married women sleeping with Menardo. But she had “not recognized” those women and those situations over which she had no control. If Iliana had suspected anything initially, when Menardo kept flying to the Federal District to review drawings and floor plans, once she began working with Alegría, she chose to ignore her suspicions and mistrust. Alegría often took her side against Menardo. Both women were of the opinion that as long as they were going to the trouble of building a house, it should be exactly the way Iliana wanted it. When Mr. Portillo had discussed the commission with Alegría, he had reminded her such opportunities to design a private home of these dimensions came seldom to young architects. Fewer and fewer could afford such luxury.
Iliana had wanted a house the size of Maximilian and Charlotte’s palace. But with patience Alegría convinced Iliana that to have a house which was so “out of scale” would be a crime against good taste. The discussions of “scale” had not meant much to Menardo except it might save him millions of pesos. He was a little surprised at how quickly the two women had warmed up to one another after he and Alegría had sex together. Menardo had expected the love affair might affect Alegría in a negative way. Menardo certainly had no desire for Iliana, but he had recovered his old
fondness for her in the heat of his passion for Alegría. It pleased Menardo to see the two of them together intently studying blueprints and to understand the various terms used by architects and builders.
Iliana began to miss the club luncheons, and when she did attend, the other wives noticed she no longer complained about the female architect. Instead, Iliana had begun to talk about scale and proportion and clever ways to conceal storage space behind wall panels. Finally, the judge’s wife, as the senior woman in the luncheon group, took Iliana aside and warned her she had been absent far too often. Actually the others were angry because Iliana was talking about things they did not understand. Iliana had not been surprised the envy of the other members of the luncheon club had manifested itself in this manner. She had rather expected it and had maybe even hoped for some little confrontation that would set her apart from them. Of course she knew that one did not let such things get too far out of hand.
Menardo spent afternoons with Alegría in her hotel room. Alegría had made it known to all that under no circumstance was she to be disturbed. The afternoons were her time to rework the design plans.
When he came to Alegría’s room, he carried a cardboard tube of blueprints. Menardo had long ago learned never to be caught without an explanation or excuse for himself.
LOVE TRYST
ALEGRÍA HAD NEVER AGAIN received him as she had the first time, the afternoon of her harrowing plane flight from Mexico City. Menardo had insisted she buy the most expensive dress that fit her, noting proudly the dress shop had few dresses in her size. The wealthy women of Tuxtla Gutiérrez were too fond of their luncheons and rich snacks at their canasta games. Actually, Alegría chose a white pantsuit of raw silk. She pretended to be shy about spending her client’s money. She was aware Iliana shopped there also and did not want to give the saleswomen of the store any extra details for their inevitable gossip. She had come only for the day, to survey the building site. Of course, she had not brought a change of clothes. The disgusting old man on the plane had vomited all over her white linen skirt and matching blazer. This was what Menardo had argued to Iliana after Alegría had returned to Mexico City, and word had reached her that Menardo had bought clothes and a hotel room for their female architect.
Menardo had given her two hours to rid herself of the filth from the plane ride. When he rang up to her room, she had recovered herself and took a businesslike tone. When she stepped out of the elevator, leather folio in hand, she looked as cool as the icy white silk. She had slipped on her big sunglasses before she stepped outside. Tacho was holding the car door. She stepped around the chauffeur, leaning as far away from him as she could. All the way to the building site she sat with a shoulder slightly turned to him, only nodding when Menardo pointed out the court building, the police station, the entrance to the country club, and the Governor’s Palace. Menardo had offered her a hand as she stepped out of the car, but she had not taken it. She walked ahead of him to survey the clearing. Menardo had lost all hope then and was about to join Tacho, who was leaning against the hood of the car, when Alegría suddenly turned and called out. Menardo had jumped, fearing a poisonous snake or a drunken Indian. But Tacho did not move, and Menardo was embarrassed to see Alegría laughing. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” she said. “I was only calling you over to see this.” Menardo hurried to the place she was standing.
“Look,” she said, but when Menardo looked he saw only the ragged edge of the jungle where the bulldozers had stopped.
“What do you think?” Alegría had been pointing up into the fringe of wide, waxy leaves. Menardo looked vainly for a bird or a green tree frog or a lizard or snake. All he saw were branches, leaves, and vines in a tangle and dappled by a few shafts of sunlight. “If it’s a flower of some kind,” Menardo said, laughing nervously, “don’t expect me to see it! I leave that to the florists.”
“The light,” Alegría said with a lovely tone to her voice, as if she were in love with the light. “See?”
“Oh!” Menardo said quickly. “Yes, yes, I do!”
“There is nothing more lovely than the veiled sunlight the jungle gives. We will let this light be the theme of the entire house.”
“Yes,” Menardo said, squinting up at the tops of the jungle trees, wondering how Iliana would ever agree to have her dream home built so close to the jungle.
Alegría had grown more and more excited about the light and the ways in which the special qualities of the softly filtered sun could be enhanced by the design of the building and the placement of windows. She had talked nonstop all the way to the hotel. Menardo could only watch her breathlessly, because when Alegría was talking about her vision of what the new house could be, her face and her hands—her whole body—were vibrant. Suddenly Menardo felt sweat rolling down his sides, sliding over his ribs and soaking the top of his shorts and trousers.
In the hotel room Menardo stood in a daze as Alegría unrolled rolls of buff tracing paper and made broad sweeps with her felt pen, quickly sketching walls of glass, a central stairway in front of the glass, and a wall that partially enclosed the jungle rather than shutting it out. When she stood back and looked at him for some words, some response, Menardo felt his desire choking him. He tried to speak but the effort made his eyes water. All he could do was move his head rapidly, and the sight of him, short, stocky, eyes wide, and head nodding, was almost more than Alegría could bear.
Later Menardo would see it again and again. Alegría had turned away from him, and when she turned back, suddenly the white silk blouse had been unbuttoned so he could see her pink brassiere and her navel. He regretted he was not a polished, finished man because he knew she must be used to that sort. The two steps he took toward her he remembered were uneven. The last step he might have stumbled. He blamed Alegría’s sudden move. Just as he reached her and put his hands on her shoulders (she was as tall as he), she had stepped back, deliberately falling backward onto the hotel bed. Menardo had never experienced a seduction of this kind before. The whores had never wasted a single motion. Their moves were methodical. They left nothing to surprise. A few of the small-town girls had hoped to catch him for a husband and had made lavish displays of themselves, spreading their legs wide, hitching skirts and dresses high, slipping panties to their ankles for him. But Menardo had not been surprised; that had been the sort of behavior he had come to expect as a rising star, a man bound for wealth.
Menardo squeezed his hand down to unzip his trousers, and Alegría had moaned and pushed against him as the back of his hand pressed against the mound between her legs. She was holding him by the shoulders, pulling him down so it was difficult to get the trouser’s zipper all the way open. He felt her raise her hips high and felt her peel off her panties beneath him. At that instant, a warm, perfumed scent enveloped them, the zipper opened, but Menardo knew he would never be able to get the trousers off. He settled for an open zipper. He was barely able to push his cock inside her before he had the sensation of a runaway horse leaping from under him, leaving him, falling far far behind, then spiraling up to the explosions of light, and at last deep, soft darkness.
Alegría listened to herself. When she was of two minds about anything, she created an internal debate. She was surprised she had even considered an affair with this provincial businessman. If word ever got back to Portillo and the rest of the old men at the firm, her future in the profession would be ruined. She would immediately be fired, and she would never work again unless she went far from Mexico City. Alegría could imagine Portillo saying, “There is a fine line, a fine balance between keeping the client happy and satisfied, and absolute surrender of good taste and moral values.” Portillo had of course been referring to the problem of clients’ demands for Roman columns and Gothic vaulted ceilings. Alegría could feel the sticky wetness leaking out between her thighs and running under her buttocks soaking the bed. With each breath Menardo’s weight on her chest was suffocating her. When she tried to shift the weight, Menardo rolled off her quickly, ap
ologizing, asking her if she was all right. Alegría wanted to laugh at Menardo’s awkwardness and his fear that he might have caused her discomfort. Instead she rolled over with her back to him and looked at the sky out the window. It was nearing sundown. The light was a rich chrome-yellow on the white walls of the hotel. Even as she was watching, a pink tint was beginning to wash into the yellow-gold. Alegría felt her chest and throat thicken, and tears began rolling down her cheeks. She was remembering what one of the Basque students had said to her in the smoky coffeehouse near the campus in Madrid. The Basque had been the only one who had really tried to persuade her. The other communists had never taken her seriously, especially not the women. But the little Basque had shaken his head at her and warned that class defined sex for your family and you. She had laughed gaily and he had said, “Someday you’ll know. You’ll feel it. How men use you. Treat you like a thing. The rich man. The powerful men. You feel how they fuck.”
HIGH RISK
THE LITTLE BASQUE had died in the riots. She had been taking final examinations in the school of architecture, so Alegría had not cried. She could not afford to be upset during examinations. The Basques had been all they had talked about at the coffeehouse. Dying for the cause. It was what he wanted, Alegría would say when the others brought it up. But now ten years later she was lying on a hotel bed in the capital city of one of the poorest states in Mexico, crying for the Basque who had been so short none of them had ever known his real name. “Shorty.” Was she crying for the Basque? The proletarian women would have said she was crying for herself, who else? Because they said she would always be looking out just for herself. Alegría wished she could tell the Basque:
The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel Page 33
