Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop (24 page)

He then turned and left, with Ramon running behind him muttering, ‘Señor, señor, if I get eaten by the
kachi kachi
my mother won't like it, she won't like it at all.'

Arturo had been in a state of confusion all day. The previous evening a visitor had come to the clinic, the thought of whom sent a feverish and guilty tingle through his limbs. He had been taken home after the lunch party by his new friends with the elation of a man who finally feels he belongs, and had fallen immediately into a deep, alcohol-induced mid-afternoon sleep. He had woken several hours later with the feeling that a vice had been clamped to his head and that someone was watching him.

‘It's good for hangovers,' Isabela said as he woke, and she handed him a cup of warm sweet herb tea. ‘My mother made me come to make sure you were all right. I was worried that she might have poisoned you.'

‘Why?' Arturo asked, laughing in surprise. ‘Is that what she was planning to do?'

‘You can never be too sure with my mother,' Isabela replied in the flirtatious tone that formed her defence against the disappointments of the world, and then continued: ‘I was worried about you. My brother thought that you are not used to drinking.' The seductive warmth of her voice sent a shiver through Arturo's
veins. He tried to remain formal and polite with her at first, but soon found himself giving in, relaxing in her company as she entertained him with her rendition of the afternoon's events. He laughed helplessly at her uncannily accurate impersonations of all the leading characters at the lunch table, especially her mother and Don Bosco. She had the same engaging manner as her brother, and a quick wit that Arturo sensed was still waiting to find its direction.

‘You should be an actress,' he said, as she gave a perfect imitation of her mother's interactions with the hapless Gringito.

‘Oh, I will be one day,' Isabela said with absolute seriousness. ‘I don't want you to think that I will stay here for ever. I'm not going to spend the rest of my days selling my mother's oranges. She may have been content to do that with her life, but I want to make something of myself. I'm going to be a film star.' Arturo heard the echo of another's words and spirit as Isabela spoke, and he instinctively moved away from her to put a safe distance between himself and the temptation of the attraction that he was trying to deny. In Isabela, he sensed an energy that was waiting to be unleashed on the world. In the company of Isabela and her family, he felt for the first time in his life that he was with real people. He tried to refocus the emotions that had been awakened by Isabela to thoughts of Claudia, and an icy anxiety gripped his heart.

‘I must go,' Isabela said, standing up to leave, as if she had detected the shift in the flow of his thoughts, ‘my mother will be wondering where I am. I'm pleased that you're all right, though. I'm sure you will be very good for us here. As I said, I think you are probably a quiet kind of hero,' and she leaned over and gently kissed him on the cheek as she said goodbye. It was Isabela's kiss that gave him
the confidence to take the dramatic action and offer his services to the search party.

Arturo and Ernesto hurried back to the clinic, with the excitement of men preparing for a mission. For the first time since his arrival, Arturo felt a sense of purpose.

‘What exactly is this
kachi kachi
?' he asked Ernesto as they walked up the path.

‘Oh nothing to be concerned about,' Ernesto replied. ‘People believe that it wanders the swamp at night and has an appetite for lost and lonely travellers. That's why it's not advisable to go out there alone.'

‘What does it look like?'

‘Many things. Sometimes an owl, sometimes a snake, sometimes a cat. Whatever it chooses to be.'

‘Do you believe in it, Ernesto?' Arturo asked, with a detectable note of concern in his voice.

‘No,' Ernesto replied. ‘I did see it once when I was a child. It chased me through the forest. But now I've stopped believing in it, I haven't seen it for years.'

As soon as they reached the clinic Arturo busied himself gathering the necessary supplies, ticking off his hurriedly prepared checklist. ‘Cream for mosquito bites, plasters, bandages …' Ernesto disappeared into the darkened consultation room in search of the ointments and injections he had safely stored under the bed. Two minutes later he ran out screaming. Arturo rushed to see what had happened, and found Ernesto standing shaking on the step of the clinic.

‘What is it? Are you hurt?' Arturo asked. Ernesto said nothing. He stood shaking and pointing at the door.

‘What is it? What's in there? Is it a snake?'

Ernesto shook his head.

‘It isn't the
kachi kachi
, is it?' Arturo said only half joking.

‘No. We have a patient,' Ernesto replied.

Arturo gave a yelp of surprise. ‘A patient? Are you sure?'

‘Yes, she's in there and she wants to talk to you,' Ernesto said, looking in the direction of the small room.

‘Who is it?'

‘Doña Gloria. Pretend I'm not here.'

‘Doña Gloria?'

‘The mayor's wife.'

‘Why does she want to talk to me?'

‘Because you're the doctor.'

‘Oh heavens,' said Arturo.

‘I'll come and get you if you're not out in ten minutes,' Ernesto said, as Arturo disappeared into the hitherto unused room.

Doña Gloria, who had made her way to the clinic determined to make her acquaintance with the handsome young doctor, had by now arranged herself on the consultation bed in anticipation of the meeting.

‘Is that you?' Gloria's voice drifted from the bed as Arturo entered the room. Arturo walked over to the window and lifted a shutter to allow some light to filter in.

‘I'm Dr Aguilar,' he said at last, introducing himself with unnecessary formality.

‘I know,' Gloria replied in a deep throaty voice, ‘that's why I'm here. I wanted to see what you look like.' Arturo coughed nervously.

‘What's wrong?' he asked, sitting down on the little stool in the corner of the room. ‘Can I help?'

‘I hope so,' Gloria said.

‘What's the problem?'

‘I have a dislocation.'

‘A dislocation? Where does it hurt?'

‘All over,' Gloria replied. ‘I have a dislocated soul. It walks two yards in front of me, taunting me. It keeps trying to trip me up. I nearly twisted my ankle on the way over here.' Arturo leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

‘Can you cure me?' Gloria asked.

‘I'm not sure. What do you think has caused your soul to become dislocated?'

‘It's because I'm sick,' Gloria said.

‘How long have you been feeling like this?'

Gloria sat up in the bed and slowly looked Arturo up and down. ‘Since before you were born,' she said. This was exactly the sort of consultation that Arturo had been dreading. One in which he found himself with no skills to treat, no power to console and no capacity to comprehend.

‘Would you excuse me for a minute,' he said and went outside to consult Ernesto.

‘What am I going to do? Apparently she has a dislocated soul. I don't know how to cure that.'

‘It isn't lost then?' Ernesto said. ‘That's easy. You only really have to worry if it's lost; it can creep up behind you and make you die of fright. It's simple. It just needs to be enticed back. They can be very capricious,' Ernesto continued, lowering his voice. ‘Especially in women of her age.'

‘And how do you entice a soul back?' Arturo asked, with some genuine interest.

‘Well, different things can work. Sweets, alcohol, love …'

‘I think perhaps she's had enough alcohol,' said Arturo. ‘I don't suppose aspirin will help will it?'

‘Does she have a headache?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Well, then, no, I don't think aspirin will help.'

‘What am I going to do with her, Ernesto?' Arturo said. ‘We're supposed to be meeting Teofelo outside the barber's in half an hour. I can't let him down. What about Don Bosco? We have to go.'

‘You see, I said you would soon be in demand,' Ernesto replied, and they went back inside the consultation room to try to devise a cure for their patient. Fortunately, in the time it had taken to discuss her course of treatment, Gloria had descended into a deep sleep and was snoring loudly.

‘I know,' Ernesto said. ‘Let's cover her with a blanket and leave her to sleep it off.'

‘Can you sleep off a dislocated soul?' Arturo asked. ‘She's my first patient, apart from you. I can't just abandon her. She's the mayor's wife.'

‘You aren't abandoning her really,' Ernesto said. ‘You're giving her a place to rest. Rest is often the best cure, isn't it? What more can you do?'

Impressed by Ernesto's sudden flash of brilliance and anxious not to let down the search party, Arturo did not stay long enough to discover that the cause of Gloria's dislocation was her husband, her marriage and everything else about life as she knew it.

Nicanora waited until the crowd in the plaza had disbanded. She saw several men go up to Teofelo and shake his hand and
commend him on his bravery before making their excuses as to why they would not be able to join him in his search. She approached him as he stood alone outside the barber's shop. ‘You will find him, won't you?' she asked. ‘He won't have gone far, will he?'

‘I'll do my best,' Teofelo said. ‘To be honest, I expect we will find him sitting under the nearest tree, waiting to see how long he can respectfully stay there before he comes back. I was giving him another day and then I was going to look for him, until all this fuss happened. One thing is for sure, it has certainly been good for his business, he's now more in demand than ever,' and Teofelo winked at her reassuringly, confident that normality would be restored to the town by the following day.

Nicanora felt so comforted by Teofelo's calm reassurance that she left the plaza certain that he would return with Don Bosco in time for dinner. After some careful thought she decided against preparing chicken, as this might stir up more sad and unwanted memories for Don Bosco and before she knew it he would be lost to the swamp again. It occurred to her that even in her thoughts she could not refer to the man who had pursued her with such love and tenderness, and who had clung to those feelings for all these years, in any other way than by his formal name. She had not wanted to let him know that his parting request to her to call him Pepito, as she once had, was founded on a false memory. She had never in her life called him by that name. She would rather have used any name other than such a familiar one for the man who had always made her feel safe and secure, and who now refused to leave her thoughts for fear that she had finally driven him from his beloved home.

She immediately set about preparing the welcome fare, including
fresh bread for its warm, homely smell, the smell of her mother's house before the world became filled with worry. Fish stew, rice, fried plantain and mango slices will add to the feast, she decided. After all, she told herself, they will be famished from a day wandering through the swamp. Don Bosco has been out there for a whole night and he won't have had any breakfast. She did not consider that she was being presumptuous in assuming that the first place the search party would come to would be her home, and that she was being even more presumptuous in thinking they would return at all.

The emptiness of the house made her nervous. Nena had stayed in the plaza with the Gringito after the crowd had dispersed, refusing to go back with her mother. ‘But he has to finish his lessons,' she had protested and Nicanora had been so distracted that she had not even thought to ask her daughter what she was teaching him. Isabela had been nowhere to be seen through all the commotion of the morning. She had no idea where the girl was. One thing was certain, she would not be in the market selling fruit as she had promised her mother she would be. I really must talk to her as well, Nicanora said to herself. But the biggest gap in the household that day was left by Ernesto. When she thought of him going off with the doctor to look for Don Bosco she felt a sensation that she had never experienced before. She was proud of her son. Nicanora turned on the radio to fill the vacuum left by her children. Immediately, the comforting tones of
Tia Sophia's Problem Hour
entered the room. Tia Sophia never failed to reassure her listeners that no matter how miserable their lives, somebody out there had it worse than them.