A Game for the Living (14 page)

“
Sí,
señor,” Inocenza said, nodding.

“The bird is loose downstairs. See if you can get him back in the cage, and then let Leo out of the study.”

At that moment the telephone rang.

“No, don't answer it, Inocenza,” Theodore said quickly. “Thank you.”

Inocenza looked surprised for an instant, then frightened.

The telephone went on—
br-ring-br-ring
—
br-ring-br-ring
.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Josefina Martinez's maid Juana opened the door for Theodore, and Theodore greeted her with a smile, a handshake, and the cheerful word that he always had for her, as if nothing had happened since he had seen her last. But Juana was not quite the same. She had been with the family thirty-three years. Lelia had been like her blood kin.

“The señora is not yet ready,” Juana said. “Please sit down, Don Teodoro. She will be out in a minute.”

Theodore sat down in a dark red plush armchair and waited, letting his eyes wander over the old-fashioned, bourgeois, comfortably cluttered living-room—antimacassars, flower-stands, paintings, and photographs crowding one another on the walls, and a huge spider plant that trailed the floor adding a note of jungle-like confusion. Josefina's apartment was like a fortress, impregnable to change. More had been added since he first came here, but nothing had been taken away. He remembered the smile he had exchanged with Lelia the first time he had come into the room and looked around.

It was nearly ten minutes before Josefina appeared. Theodore jumped to his feet and bowed over her hand. She wore a long, impeccably neat housecoat, her hair was arranged, her lipstick and mascara freshly applied.

“Sit down, dear Teo! Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thank you, Josefina.”

“Or a drink? Whisky?”

“No, thank you, really. I'm quite all right.”

“Ah,” she sighed, sitting down, resting her plump hands palms-down in her lap. “So now Ramón is staying with you.”

“Yes.”

“Tsch-tsch. It is scandalous, Teo.”

“What is scandalous?”

“Our courts of justice. Our police force and their psychiatrists.” Her large dark eyes, full of feminine wisdom and quite devoid of logic, glanced around the room impatiently. “He will only take advantage of your unbelievable charity and perhaps kill you, too!”

Theodore leaned forward. “Dear Josefina, I think we both must yield to the opinions of the psychiatrists and the police. You have not seen Ramón lately. He is the victim of his own obsession. His story makes no sense, you see. That's why he was released. And now he—”

“No sense to the psychiatrists! But you and I know him, Teo. I myself have seen his temper.” Her voice grew shriller. “I think he should pay. He should pay for what he has done. And he confessed. I cannot understand their releasing him. I have written to the President of the country, Teo. Would you like to see a copy of my letter?”

Theodore started to demur, or at least to postpone it, but Josefina was already on her feet, on her way to the bedroom. He tried to collect his facts again, his argument. He would lose, he knew it. But he had to pay this call. Josefina had telephoned him that morning, horrified that Ramón was under his roof.

She swept into the room again with her letter. It was on two sheets of typewriter paper, and, before he began to read, Theodore found himself glancing at the type to see if the t's were somewhat tilted and the e's out of line, which were two of the clues Sauzas had for the typewriter which had written the postcard from Florida. Then he began to read with respectful attention. It was, of course, a biased denunciation of Ramón's character, but, under the circumstances, Theodore had to forgive it. It was curious the way Josefina's passion began to persuade him that Ramón was not innocent, and then he came to his senses when Josefina stated that she had always suspected that Ramón would be capable of this. That, Theodore knew, was not true, because she had used to be very fond of Ramón, fonder perhaps than of him, because Ramón was one of her own countrymen. The rest of her letter was a rhetorical complaint against the inefficiency of the Mexican laws, the police and detective force, and a diatribe against “the modern medicine-men with degrees,” the psychiatrists.

“Do you agree or not?” Josefina demanded.

“I, too, felt the same way at first. Believe me, dear Josefina.”

“And how do you feel now?” Obviously she expected her letter to have convinced him that she was right.

“I repeat, I have spoken to Ramón. His story does not hold water—”

“That's what he wants you to think!” she shrieked, pointing a finger. “He has won you over, that's all!”

Juana, with the privilege of her years of service, was standing in the door of the bedroom, listening.

“No, Josefina, on the contrary, he wants us to think he is guilty,” Theodore said quietly. “He is wretched and depressed because no one believes him, because not even the Church will punish him, until after he is dead, he thinks.”

“You can be sure of that! God will punish him!”

“Yes, so Ramón thinks. But it is not enough for him now. As a matter of fact, Josefina, listening to Ramón, one can be almost won over to Ramón's side—that he did it.” Theodore was leaning forward, speaking slowly and gesturing as if to convey with his hands what his words could not, he knew.

An awkward silence grew and grew. He could hear Josefina's excited breathing. Then a clock in her bedroom said: “
Coo-koo! Coo-koo! Coo-koo
!
”

“I suppose, Josefina,” Theodore said, a moment after the clock had stopped, “all I can say is that I do not believe Ramón is guilty. I think he is devastated by grief.”

“Tyuh!” Josefina stared across the room, out of the window.

Theodore looked at his clasped hands. “Well, I didn't come to make you believe what I believe, Josefina. What I believe is only my opinion.” And where would his passive attitude get him, he wondered. Where was his courage? What was so wrong about convincing others of what he believed, if he thought what he believed was true? And he was
ninety
per cent convinced of Ramón's innocence.
.
.
.
An oval portrait photograph in an oval wooden frame on the wall behind Josefina had been holding his eyes for several seconds. Perhaps its shape had attracted his glance because of its similarity to the oval pendant of Lelia's necklace, and realizing this and that his staring at it would profit him nothing, he still stared at it as if its form would reveal some secret.

“Juana,
por favor,
a little coffee,” Josefina said, raising a hand and letting it drop in her lap again. In defiance of her doctor's orders, Josefina drank at least a dozen little cups of very strong coffee every day. “If Ramón is not guilty, then who is guilty?” Josefina asked.

“I don't know.” Then he reminded her of the postcard from Florida, and that anyone could have got Inés Jackson's name and the fact that she lived in Florida from the newspapers. He reminded her that Lelia's keys had never been found and that Ramón had been unable to tell the police what he had done or might have done with them. He told her also about the silent telephone calls, two of which had come while Ramón was either in prison or at Theodore's house. Josefina's eyes stretched wider as he spoke, and perhaps some element of doubt entered her mind, Theodore was not sure. He knew only that the doubt would not be enough to sway her.

When the coffee came in, Theodore gathered himself for the only statement he could make with conviction. “Josefina, Ramón and I have always been good friends. Since I am more inclined to believe he is innocent than that he is guilty, I still must be his friend.” The words were stark in his Spanish, and he felt they did not carry much weight with Josefina.

“Only inclined? Why are you not sure? Because you know in your heart that he is guilty!”

“No, I don't. It's not in my heart, and even if it were—”

“I know one should forgive one's enemies—” She shrugged. “It is hard to do when the victim is one's own flesh and blood and the crime so horrible beyond any words. Teo, you are not a stupid man, only too naïve and too generous by far. If you think he is not guilty, then you must think he is crazy for confessing. Either way he is a dangerous man for you to have under your roof.”

“I'm aware of that,” said Theodore.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The psychiatrist arrived at four-fifteen, a quarter of an hour later than he had promised. His name was Dr. Cervantes Loera, and he had been recommended by Theodore's medical doctor for just such a service as this. Dr. Loera was an advanced thinker, “flexible and experimental,” Theodore's doctor had said. He was plump, with a black moustache and glasses, about forty-five. He had come to talk about painting with a view to buying something of Theodore's. He was to be introduced to Ramón as Sr. Cervantes.

Ramón was upstairs when Dr. Loera entered the living-room. He looked around and asked which pictures were Theodore's, as if Ramón had been present.

“I've asked him to come down,” Theodore said. “Perhaps he will of his own accord. Inocenza, you may bring the tea now.”

When the tea and cakes were brought in and Ramón had still not come down, Theodore went upstairs to speak to him.

“I don't care to come down, thank you, Teo,” Ramón said. He was sitting in a chair by the bookshelves in the guest-room, looking at a book in his lap.

“Very well. But I may bring him up to show him a picture or so, if you don't mind.”

“In here?” Ramón asked, frowning.

“Yes, Ramón. I'd like him to see these two pictures.” Theodore went downstairs again.

“Then we'll go up,” Dr. Loera said when Theodore had reported his conversation with Ramón.

They climbed the stairs, with their teacups, and went into Theodore's studio, where the psychiatrist passed a few minutes looking at Theodore's paintings and at the work in progress on his easel. The doctor's large, restless eyes took in everything. Theodore fretted with impatience for him to see Ramón.

“Let's just go in,” Dr. Loera said.

Theodore led the way to the guest-room, whose door was open. Ramón looked up from his book with surprise.

“
Señor Cervantes,” Theodore said, “my friend Ramón Otero. Ramón, this is the gentleman who is interested in my paintings.”

Ramón nodded and murmured something, and got up from his chair with the book.

“Are you a painter, too?” Dr. Loera asked, which Theodore thought was probably the wrong thing to say, since the newspapers had made Ramón's name quite familiar to the public.

“No, I am not,” Ramón replied.

Dr. Loera strolled to a wall on which hung one of Theodore's rare but pleasant paintings of a vase with flowers. “A cheerful room, isn't it?”

Ramón nodded. He was watching the doctor and moving so that he faced him at all times. Then Ramón tossed the book down on the bed and walked out of the room and down the stairs.

Theodore looked at Dr. Loera, who shrugged. Theodore was quite tired of shrugs. “Well—”

“Well, we follow him,” said Dr. Loera with a wide smile.

They went downstairs and with the utmost casualness walked to the cocktail-table, on which their tea-things stood. Ramón was at the far end of the room which served as the dining area.

“I am more interested in your abstract,” the psychiatrist said. “That yellow, for instance. Are you selling that?”

“I'm not sure. It's one of my latest paintings.”

“You had very good notices in a show last autumn,” Dr. Loera said pleasantly. “I remember them. I also saw the show. That was the one Dosamantes was in, too, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” said Theodore. Lelia had chosen the three paintings he had in the show.

“Dosamantes,” Ramón murmured to himself, touching the edge of a round wooden board on which stood the remains of a huge cake.

Dr. Loera walked slowly towards Ramón, who stepped a little to one side, around the edge of the table. He pretended to look at a picture, which happened to be an old engraving, on the wall above the sideboard. Then he looked down at the wide arc of white icing on the wooden board and said: “That must have been quite a cake! A wedding cake?”

Theodore braced himself for a reaction from Ramón and said: “A baker acquaintance of ours—Alejandro Nuñez—brought it. He baked it in memory of our friend who died—Lelia Ballesteros.”

Ramón stared at Theodore as if he had not heard of the cake before. The cake had had a figure of Lelia on its top in pink and white icing, and a sentimental verse written around its layers in blue icing.

“You didn't eat any of it, Teo? It was a well-meant gift, wasn't it?” Ramón asked.

“Of course, and I did eat some. But it's two weeks old now. I told you about Alejandro's bringing it, Ramón.”

Ramón looked at the cake with a puzzled expression. Was he wondering where the powdered-sugar figure of Lelia had gone? Theodore had removed it one day when no one was in the house, unable to look any longer at its silly red mouth and its streaming dark blue hair that was supposed to represent Lelia's black hair.

“Señor—Teo, excuse me,” Ramón said abruptly, and went to the stairs.

Dr. Loera picked up the remains of his cool cup of tea, drank it and refused a second cup.

Theodore was eager to go out where they might talk without being overheard. He walked out with the doctor and continued walking with him on the sidewalk while the doctor seemed to be arranging what he had to say.

“Now you are waiting to hear words of wisdom that I can't give you,” Dr. Loera said.

“I am waiting to hear anything at all.”

“I might have risked saying that I heard about the tragedy—the death of your mutual friend. But I thought if he became suspicious, it might turn him against you, señor. A most suspicious nature, certainly. Paranoid, perhaps. Not easy to deal with.”

“He certainly is not. He goes from humility to arrogance, but mostly he is humble. He thinks he hasn't the right to eat food at the table!”

“Don't be so humble yourself. Treat him as if he were normal. Don't talk deliberately of subjects that depress him or set him off, but don't treat him like an invalid. That will only make him feel worse, sorrier for himself and even more guilty. He has an insatiable guilt. You understand?”

Of course Theodore understood. He wanted something else.

The doctor went on coolly. “He thinks he has wronged you, you know, by killing the woman you both loved. His feeling for you is ambivalent. He would like to hurt you because of his shame and also apologize and make amends for having hurt you.”

“Will he try to hurt me?”

“Probably not physically. There are other ways. His ambivalence may keep him motionless.” Dr. Loera walked in slow strides, looking down at the sidewalk. “Well, that's your immediate problem, a mere detail of the whole picture. Believe me, I would have liked to spend more time with him, señor, but I could hardly have done that without appearing to chase him around the house, you understand.” The doctor had stopped on a corner. “Here I must say good-bye. Another appointment.” He hailed a
libre
even as he spoke. “It was very interesting to meet your friend, señor, and also to see your paintings.
Adiós.
”

“
Adiós.
” Theodore watched him enter the
libre
and slam the door, thinking that he should have made it clear to his own doctor that he would pay Dr. Loera for his time. But he hadn't made it clear. And the bill would probably come anyway, Theodore thought. As he turned away, he caught sight of the stick-figured boy a block distant, crossing the street and glancing his way. He still carried something under his arm. He should try a different neighbourhood for his mufflers, Theodore thought. He walked back to his house, feeling the familiar vague answers, the ‘ifs' and ‘perhaps', settling oppressively on his mind and beginning to paralyze. He had meant to ask the psychiatrist if he thought urging Ramón to go to a Carnaval party was a good idea. He had forgotten, and now it seemed of ludicrous unimportance, like Ramón's murmuring “Dosamantes”, which meant “two lovers”.

Ramón was standing in the living-room when he came back. Inocenza was clearing the tea-things.

“Who was he?” Ramón asked.

“A Señor Cervantes,” Theodore said. “I've never seen him before.”

“Did he buy a painting?”

“I think he wants to buy the yellow one.”

“For how much?”

“Six thousand pesos.”

Ramón's eyes widened at the sum, but he said: “Is that all?”

“I'm not Picasso. And this is Mexico.” And I'm still living, Theodore started to add, but didn't.

“I don't trust him. He doesn't look honest.”

Theodore lighted a cigarette, suddenly nervous and uncomfortable. “Well, this transaction is a simple one, if it takes place. You won't ever have to see him again.”

Ramón turned the gramophone on, carefully took a record from a Debussy album, and placed it on the machine. It was one of the
études
that Ramón especially liked, this and two others, that he played over and over.

“Olga's party is tomorrow night,” Theodore said when the
étude
was nearly over. Ramón always removed the record when the first
étude
had finished playing, though there were several others on it. “Would you like to go?”

“A Carnaval party? Are you going?” Ramón asked.

“Yes, I thought I would. She very much wants me to come. I don't have to stay long. Inocenza is going to be there to help serve.”

“And I suppose you're taking somebody?” Ramón asked incredulously.

“No one. You're under no obligation to go, Ramón.” He smiled. “Come upstairs with me. I want to show you something.”

Ramón went with him reluctantly.

Theodore entered his room and got a package from the bottom of his cupboard. “Costumes I bought yesterday. We have to wear a costume, you know. Mine's a kangaroo. How do you like that? With my big feet, this'll look very well, don't you think?” Theodore lifted the long cloth feet that were stiffened with cardboard soles. The head had round holes so that one could see out of it, and a projecting, smiling muzzle. “The other costume is just a clown, but one can wear any kind of mask over it. Look at the masks.” Theodore opened a paper bag and pulled out a gorilla mask and another that was a kitten's face with bobbing rubber whiskers. “Take your choice. Or you don't have to come, if you don't want to.”

“One disguise is as good as another.” Ramón looked down at them. In the lamplight, his smooth, pale forehead was like a rectangle of marble. “They don't fool anybody for long.”