Mexican Gothic

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  She had thought to say nothing of the matter, but she wanted to gauge his reaction. He’d assessed her. Now it was her turn.

  “You have indeed been spending time with Francis,” Virgil said, distaste clear on his face. “Yes, I forgot to mention that previous episode.”

  “How convenient.”

  “What? The doctor explained to you that she has depressive tendencies, and you thought it was all lies. If I’d told you she was suicidal—”

  “She’s not suicidal,” Noemí protested.

  “Well, of course, since you seem to know everything,” Virgil muttered. He looked a little bored and waved a hand, as if shooing an invisible insect. Shooing her. The gesture made her furious.

  “You took Catalina from the city and brought her here, and if she is suicidal then it’s your fault,” she replied.

  She wished to be cruel. She wanted to repay him with the same coin he’d used with her before, but once she had spit her venom she regretted the words, because for once he seemed upset. He looked as if she’d physically stricken him, a pure moment of pain or perhaps shame.

  “Virgil,” she began, but he shook his head, silencing her.

  “No, you’re correct. It’s my fault. Catalina fell in love with me for the wrong reasons.” Virgil sat very straight in his seat, his eyes fixed on her, his hands resting on the arms of the chair. “Sit, please.”

  She was not ready to concede. She did not sit. Instead she stood behind her chair, leaning forward on its back. She had a vague thought that it would also be easier to run out of the room if she was standing. She wasn’t sure why she thought this. It was a disquieting thought, that she must be ready to spring up like a gazelle and escape. It was, she concluded, that she did not like to be speaking to him alone in his room.

  His terrain. His burrow.

  She suspected Catalina had never set foot in this room. Or if she had, it had been a brief invitation. No trace of her remained. The furniture, the great large painting bequeathed by his father, the wooden screen, the ancient wallpaper streaked with faint traces of mold, these all belonged to Virgil Doyle. His taste, his things. Even his features seemed to complement the room. The blond hair was striking against the dark leather, his face seemed made of alabaster when framed with folds of red velvet.

  “Your cousin has a wild imagination,” Virgil said. “I think she saw in me a tragic, romantic figure. A boy who lost his mother at a young age in a senseless tragedy, whose family’s fortune evaporated in the years of the Revolution, who grew up with a sick father in a crumbling mansion in the mountains.”

  Yes. It must have pleased her. At first. He had a vehemence that Catalina would have found appealing and, in his home, with the mist outside and the glint of silver candelabra inside, he would have shined very brightly. How long, Noemí wondered, until the novelty wore off?

  He, perhaps sensing her question, smirked. “No doubt she pictured the house as a delightful, rustic refuge which, with a little effort, could be made cheerier. Of course, it is not as if my father would allow even a single curtain to be changed. We exist at his pleasure.”

  He turned his head to gaze at the painting bearing Howard Doyle’s likeness, a finger tapping gently against the chair’s armrest.

  “And would you want to change a single curtain?”

  “I’d change a number of things. My father hasn’t left this house in decades. To him this is the ideal vision of the world and nothing more. I’ve seen the future and understand our limitations.”

  “If that is the case, if change is possible—”

  “Change of a certain type,” Virgil agreed. “But not a change so grand that I’d become something I am not. You can’t change the essence of a thing. That is the problem. The point, I suppose, is that Catalina wanted someone else. She didn’t want me, flesh and blood and flawed. She was immediately unhappy, and yes, it is my fault. I could not live up to her expectations. What she saw in me, it was never there.”

  Immediately. Why, then, had Catalina not returned home? But even as she asked herself the question she knew the answer. The family. Everyone would have been appalled, and the society pages would have been filled with the most poisonous ink. Exactly as her father now feared.

  “What did you see in her?”

  Noemí’s father had been sure it was money. She didn’t think Virgil would admit it, but she felt confident that she might be able to discern the truth, to read between the lines. To approach the answer, even if it remained veiled.

  “My father is ill. He is, in fact, dying. Before passing away, he wanted to see me married. He wanted to know I would have a wife and children; that the family line would not die out. It was not the first time he asked this of me, and it was not the first time I complied. I was married once before.”

  “I did not know that,” Noemí said. It quite surprised her. “What happened?”

  “She was everything my father thought an ideal wife should be, except that he forgot to consult me on the matter,” Virgil said with a chuckle. “She was, in fact, Arthur’s daughter. My father had gotten it in his head since we were children that we would marry. ‘One day, when you’re married,’ they’d tell us. Such repetition didn’t help. It had the opposite effect. When I turned twenty-three we were wed. She disliked me. I found her dull.

  “Nevertheless, I suppose we might have managed to build something of value between us if it hadn’t been for the miscarriages. She had four of them, and they wore her down. She abandoned me.”

  “She divorced you?”

  He nodded. “Yes, and eventually, implicitly, I realized my father wanted me to remarry. I took a few trips to Guadalajara and then to Mexico City. I met women who were interesting and pretty, who would have no doubt pleased my father. But Catalina was the one who really caught my attention. She was sweet. It’s not a quality that is in great abundance at High Place. I liked that. I liked her softness, her romantic notions. She wanted a fairy tale, and I wanted to give her that.

  “Then, of course, it all went wrong. Not merely her illness, but her loneliness, her bouts of sadness. I thought she understood what it would mean to live with me and I understood what it would be like living with her. I was wrong. And here we are.”

  A fairy tale, yes. Snow White with the magical kiss and the beauty who transforms the beast. Catalina had read all those stories for the younger girls, and she had intoned each line with great dramatic conviction. It had been a performance. Here was the result of Catalina’s daydreams. Here was her fairy tale. It amounted to a stilted marriage that, coupled with her sickness and her mental tribulations, must place an exhausting burden on her shoulders.

  “If it’s the house she dislikes, you could take her somewhere else.”

  “My father wants us at High Place.”

  “You must make your own life one day, no?”

  He smiled. “My own life. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but none of us can have our own lives. My father needs me here, and now my wife is sick, and it is the same story. We have to stay. You do realize the difficulty of the situation?”

  Noemí rubbed her hands together. Yes, she did. She didn’t like it, but she did. She was tired. She felt like they kept going in circles. Perhaps Francis was correct, and it was best to pack her bags. But, no, no, she refused.

  He turned his gaze on her. Blue and intense, the blue of lapis lazuli, carefully ground. “Well, we seem to have drifted from the topic I had in mind when I called you here. I wanted to apologize to you for my words the last time we met. I was not in a good frame of mind. I still am not. Anyway, if I’ve upset you then I am very sorry,” Virgil said, quite surprising her.

  “Thank you,” she replied.

  “I hope we can be friendly. There is no need to act as though we are enemies.”

  “I know we aren’t.”

  “We’ve gotten off on the wrong
foot, I’m afraid. Perhaps we might try again. I promise I’ll ask Dr. Cummins to begin asking about psychiatrists in Pachuca, as an option down the line. You can help me pick one; we might even write to him together.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “A truce, then?”

  “We’re not at war, remember?”

  “Ah, yes. Nevertheless,” he said, extending his hand. Noemí hesitated, then stepped from behind the chair and shook it. His grip was firm, the hand large, covering her own tiny one.

  She excused herself and left. When she was walking back to her room she saw Francis standing in front of a door, opening it. Her footsteps made him halt, and he looked at her. He inclined his head, in a mute greeting, but said nothing.

  She wondered if Florence had chided him for doing Noemí’s bidding. Maybe he would be summoned to stand before Virgil, and he’d tell Francis the same thing he’d said to Noemí: It seems you spend most of your time with her. She pictured a quarrel. Muted. Howard didn’t like loud noises, and confrontations must take place in whispers.

  He won’t help me again, she thought as she gazed at his hesitant face. I’ve exhausted his goodwill.

  “Francis,” she said.

  He pretended not to hear her. Gently the young man closed the door behind him and disappeared from sight. He was swallowed by one of the many chambers of the house, into one of the bellies of this beast.

  She pressed a palm against the door, thought better of it, and kept on walking, keenly aware that she had already caused too much trouble. She wanted to make it better. She decided to seek out Florence and found her talking with Lizzie in the kitchen, their voices a whisper.

  “Florence, do you have a minute?” she asked.

  “Your cousin is napping. If you want—”

  “It’s not about Catalina.”

  Florence gestured toward the maid, then turned to Noemí and motioned for her to follow her. They went into a room she had not visited before. It had a large, solid table with an old-fashioned sewing machine set atop it. Open shelves held sewing baskets and yellowed fashion magazines. On a wall you could see old nails, signaling the spot where there had once been paintings and now there were smudges, faint traces of frames. But the room was very tidy, very clean.

  “What do you need?” Florence asked.

  “I asked Francis to take me to town this morning. I know you don’t like it when we leave without speaking to you. I wanted you to know it was my fault. You shouldn’t be angry at him.”

  Florence sat down on a large chair that was set next to the table, her fingers laced together, and stared at Noemí. “You think me harsh, don’t you? No, don’t deny it.”

  “Strict would be the most appropriate word,” Noemí said politely.

  “It is important to maintain a sense of order in one’s house, in one’s life. It helps you determine your place in the world, where you belong. Taxonomical classifications help place each creature atop its right branch. It’s no good to forget yourself, nor your obligations. Francis has duties, he has chores. You pull him away from those chores. You make him forget his obligations.”

  “But surely he doesn’t have chores all day long.”

  “Doesn’t he? How would you know? Even if his days are made of leisure, why should he spend them with you?”

  “I don’t mean to take up all his time, but I don’t see—”

  “He’s silly when he is with you. He completely forgets who he’s supposed to be. And do you think Howard would let him have you?” Florence shook her head. “The poor boy,” she muttered. “What do you want, hmm? What do you want from us? There’s nothing left to give.”

  “I wanted to apologize,” Noemí said.

  Florence pressed a hand against her right temple and closed her eyes. “You have. Go, go.”

  And like the wretched creature that Florence had mentioned, that does not know its place nor how to find it, Noemí sat on the stairs for a while, staring at the nymph on the newel post and contemplating the motes of dust dancing in a ray of light.

  16

  Florence would not let Noemí sit alone with Catalina. One of the maids, Mary, had been ordered to stand guard in a corner. Noemí was not to be trusted ever again. Nobody said that was the case, but while she approached her cousin’s bed the maid moved slowly around, arranging the clothes in the armoire, folding a blanket. Needless tasks.

  “Could you do that later, please?” she asked Mary.

  “No time for it in the morning,” the maid replied, her voice even.

  “Mary, please.”

  “Don’t worry about her,” Catalina said. “Sit.”

  “Oh, I…Yes, it doesn’t matter,” Noemí said, trying not to be upset about this. She wanted to maintain a positive façade for Catalina. Besides, Florence had said she could have a half hour with Catalina, nothing more, and she wanted to make the best of it. “You look much better.”

  “Liar,” Catalina said, but she smiled.

  “Should I fluff your pillows? Hand you your slippers so tonight you can dance like one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses?”

  “You liked the illustrations in that book,” Catalina said softly.

  “I did. I admit I’d read it right now if I could.”

  The maid began fussing with the curtains, turning her back to them, and Catalina gave Noemí an eager look. “Maybe you’d read me poetry? There’s my old book of poems there. You know how I like Sor Juana.”

  She did remember the book, which rested on the night table. Like the tome packed with fairy tales, this was a familiar treasure. “Which one should I read?” Noemí asked.

  “ ‘Foolish Men.’ ”

  Noemí turned the pages. There it was, the well-worn pages as she remembered. And there too was an unusual element. A yellow, folded piece of paper tucked against the pages. Noemí glanced at her cousin. Catalina said nothing, her lips were pressed tight, but in her eyes Noemí read a naked fear. She glanced in Mary’s direction. The woman was still busy with the curtains. Noemí pocketed the piece of paper and began reading. She went through several poems, keeping her voice steady. Eventually Florence arrived at the doorway carrying a silver tray with a matching teapot and a cup and a handful of cookies on a porcelain plate.

  “It’s time to let Catalina rest,” Florence said.

  “Of course.”

  Noemí clapped the book shut and docilely bid her cousin goodbye. When Noemí reached her room, she noticed that Florence had been in there. There was a tray with a cup of tea and the handful of cookies, like Catalina’s.

  Noemí ignored the tea and closed the door. She didn’t have an appetite and had forgotten to smoke a cigarette in ages. This whole situation was souring her to everything.

  Noemí unfolded the piece of paper. She recognized Catalina’s handwriting on a corner. “This is proof,” she said. Noemí frowned and unfolded the letter a second time, wondering what Catalina had written. Would it be a repeat of that strange missive she had sent to Noemí’s father? The letter that had started it all.

  The letter, however, was not her cousin’s as she’d thought. It was older, the paper brittle, and it seemed to have been torn from a journal. It was not dated, although it seemed to be the page of a diary entry.

  I put these thoughts down on paper because it is the only way to remain firm in my resolve. Tomorrow I may lose courage but these words should anchor me to the here and now. To the present moment. I hear their voices constantly, whispering. They glow at night. Perhaps that might be endurable, this place would be endurable, if not for him. Our lord and master. Our God. An egg, split asunder, and a mighty serpent rising from it, expanding wide its jaws. Our great legacy, spun in cartilage and blood and roots so very deep. Gods cannot die. That is what we have been told, what Mother believes. But Mother cannot protect me, cannot save any of us. It is up to me. Whether th
is is sacrilege or simple murder, or both. He beat me when he found out about Benito but I swore there and then that I would never bear a child nor do his will. I believe firmly this death will be no sin. It is a release and my salvation. R.

  R, a single letter as a signature. Ruth. Could this truly be a page from Ruth’s journal? She didn’t think Catalina would have faked such a thing, even if it bore an uncanny resemblance to the rambling letter her cousin had penned. But where would Catalina have found it? The house was large and old. She could picture Catalina walking the darkened hallways. A loose floorboard lifted, the elusive diary fragment hidden beneath the wooden plank.

  Head bent over the letter, she bit her lips. Reading this scrap of paper with those eerie sentences could make anyone start believing in ghosts or curses or both. Of course, she’d never given credence to the idea of things that go bump in the night. Fantasies and fancies, that’s what she told herself. She’d read The Golden Bough, nodding at its chapter on the expulsion of evils, she’d curiously leafed through a journal detailing the connection between ghosts and sickness in Tonga, and been amused by a letter to the editor of Folklore detailing an encounter with a headless spirit. She was not in the habit of believing in the supernatural.

  This is proof, Catalina had said. But proof of what? She laid the letter on the table and smoothed it out. She read it again.

  Put the facts together, you fool, she told herself, chewing on a nail. And what were the facts? That her cousin spoke about a presence in this house, including voices. Ruth also described voices. Noemí had heard no voices, but she’d had bad dreams and sleepwalked, which she hadn’t done in years.

  One could conclude this was a case of three silly, nervous women. Physicians of old would have diagnosed it as hysterics. But one thing Noemí was not was hysterical.

  If the three of them were not hysterical, then the three of them had truly come in contact with something inside this house. But must it be supernatural? Must it be a curse? A ghost? Could there be a more rational answer? Was she seeing a pattern where there wasn’t any? After all, that’s what humans did: look for patterns. She could be weaving three disparate stories into a narrative.