Dr. Brinkley's Tower (19 page)

At the top of the hour, the talking ended. Father Alvarez yawned, climbed out of the hammock, and searched for the
spot where Rosita (or Rosaura or Rosana or Rosalita) might have left his newspaper. Meanwhile, his small house was filling with twangy American music, all violins and washtub basses and atonal vocals. The father found his paper, read a bit, drifted off, woke up, helped himself to a draught of goat leche he kept in a green plastic bucket on the cool ceramic kitchen floor, read a bit more, drifted off a second time, and then made himself a simple dinner of machaca, tortilla, and beans seasoned with epazote sprigs. On the far side of the room, the father folded his newspaper and thought about his evening plans. Probably he would spend his night reading.

That's when it occurred to him that the music on the radio had stopped and had again been replaced by talking. This time his ears perked. His face flushed.
Today
, he heard,
we'll be talking about the end of days and how it's almost upon us …

Alvarez stood and drew closer to the radio. He did so cautiously, as though approaching a poisonous snake.
For the good Lord told us in the Book of Revelation that, one day, each and every one of us would endure a reckoning
 … Alvarez swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. Though he didn't totally understand what the announcer was saying, he did know that these weren't the sage ramblings of a radio doctor but the fire-and-brimstone language of a country preacher.

He went closer to the radio, the glow of its dial now something demonic, its very operation a taunt from the world of darkness … 
For those lucky few who have devoted their lives to Christ, there will come a rapture …
and with each step, the fact that this signal was being heard in Alaska — ay, ay, in
Russia
— further enraged the father. He stopped about a metre from the radio and stared. What little English he did
know was religious in nature, and certain terms kept leaping out at him:
day of judgement
 … 
signs and wonders
 … 
the Lord's limitless fury
 … 
number six-six-six.
He felt himself growing nauseated. This was the verbiage of philistines, of simpletons. And yet
it
was reaching the ears of Eskimo fur trappers, and not the poetic nuance of Catholicism.

Trembling with umbrage, he took another half-step closer to the radio. The voice — he could make out a heavy Southern drawl — stopped and was replaced by a different voice. Judging by the sudden presence of static, the father concluded that it was a phone-in caller. It took him another moment or two to realize that the caller — a highly agitated woman — was not speaking in English and
was
speaking in Latin. He listened closely, trying to pick out individual words, and couldn't — the voice was racing, desperate, crazy, inflamed. And yet this poor caller's Latin was a hundred times more intelligible than her next choice of dialect. For as the father stood rooted to the floor, his face burning with enmity, the caller suddenly stopped talking, made a sound resembling an indigestive growl, and began squawking like a chicken.

The radio host's voice returned. Because the father's mind was sharpened by rage and disgust, he more or less understood what the preacher said. — Glory be to God, he boomed, — we got ourselves a durned soothsayer!

Father Alvarez stormed out of his house, trudged towards the cantina, flung open the wooden doors, and marched over to the bar. The cantina owner's mouth hung open when he saw the state of his old amigo.

— Mescal, Alvarez ordered. — And for the love of Dios, leave the bottle.

A LIMOUSINE DRIVEN BY ONE OF BRINKLEY'S CHAUFFEURS
stopped in front of the home belonging to Malfil and Violeta Cruz. Though the car was incrementally smaller than Brinkley's Duesenberg and was made by a manufacturer called Mercedes, it was similar in that the initials
JRB
appeared on the dashboard, on all four wheel hubs, on the front and rear bumpers, on the polished mahogany running boards, on each of the sun visors, and on all of the Corinthian leather seats. The driver stepped out and was immediately attacked by a team of ravenous curs emanating from the alleyway. He jumped back in the car and began swinging a rolled-up newspaper at the dog closest to his window. In response, the animals barked with rabid intensity and vindictively doused all four tires with pheremonal spray.

Violeta and her mother heard the ruckus. Over the past hour they'd washed each other's hair and put on the only nice clothes they possessed. In the case of the younger Cruz, it was the blouse and white skirt that she had worn to her fiesta de
quinceañera. In the case of the older Cruz — who was still only thirty-three years of age, though neither as high-cheek-boned nor as raven-haired as her daughter — it was the pale blue dress she had worn to church in the days when Father Alvarez was still considered a man of the cloth. They stepped into the laneway and nodded respectfully at the driver, who was too intimidated to step out of the car and open the rear door for them. Instead he nodded his greetings and gesticulated at the seat behind him. Violeta climbed in and gazed out the window as the driver put the car into gear.

As the limousine was too large to turn around in the narrow streets, the driver had no choice but to drive west along Avenida de Cinco de Mayo, past the House of Gentlemanly Pleasures. A few hundred metres beyond the radio tower, the street curved and linked with Avenida Hidalgo, which ran along the bottom of the pueblo. Well off in the distance, Violeta could see a thin spiral of smoke drifting skyward from the hilltop shack belonging to the curandera.

The front of the car came around in a slow arc, a tiresome manoeuvre in that many of the homeless who had flocked to newly rich Corazón de la Fuente had turned the area flanking this intersection into a squatter's camp. The Mercedes' tires bumped over sleeping rolls, cooking logs, tent pegs, mescal bottles, pulque gourds, and old, dented pots. This angered the squatters, who chased after the car throwing rocks, old shoes, and lumps of bark soap, all the while yelling the vilest of profanities at the tops of their smoke-damaged lungs.

Soon the limousine passed the cantina and entered the plaza, which was filled with vagrants, tortilla vendors, and toothless, emaciated prostitutes who had been refused employment
by Madam Félix. Heads turned as the car circled past the town hall, the church, and the store operated by Fajardo Jimenez. It then exited at the northeast corner of the plaza, again turning onto Avenida Cinco de Mayo. The road meandered for several blocks before arcing around the ejido and Antonio Garcia's hacienda and heading towards the bridge separating an obscenely rich nation from an incorrigibly poor one.

The driver crossed without having to pay the usual assortment of bribes, and then travelled along the main street of Del Río before stopping in front of the Roswell Hotel. He opened Violeta's door and wished her a good day.

— Gracias, she said to the chauffeur, who tipped his driver's cap and smiled professionally.

Violeta and her mother entered the lobby of the hotel, which in truth was a hotel no longer, in that every suite was now taken up by Brinkley's medical facility or his radio station or his growing pharmaceutical enterprise. Naturally, he'd kept on the hotel's staff to clean, make beds, deliver sandwiches, and bring coffee in the middle of the night.

Violeta looked around, admiring the chandeliers and fine wool carpets, and was about to comment on the opulence of the hotel when a paunchy, middle-aged man dressed in a brown suit came up to them.

— Greetings, he announced in English. — I am Dale Stollins, the manager of Radio XER, or, as we like to call it, the Sunshine Station from Between the Nations. You must be Malfil and Violeta Cruz, am I correct?

—Jess, said Malfil.

— In that case, welcome.

He thrust a beefy pink hand towards Violeta's mother. The older woman took it while smiling graciously. He then offered his hand to Violeta; her palm came away damp, and she had to fight the urge to wipe it against the fabric of her skirt.

The two women followed him to a door marked
Exit.
He pushed it open with his shoulder and they followed him down a cement staircase. At the bottom of the steps he pushed through another door, this one bearing three white letters — XER — surrounded by a squadron of lightning bolts. They entered a carpeted, tomb-like quiet. The lights were low, and when Stollins told them that Dr. Brinkley was still doing his
Happy Health Hour,
he did so in a voice that was practically a whisper. This pleased Violeta, as silence had a way of calming her mind and stilling the worries that galloped through her head at all hours of the day and night. Stollins led them through the empty lounge — there was a sofa, stuffed chairs, thick orange carpeting, and a chalkboard running along the length of one wall. As they walked along a hallway lined with closed doors, Violeta could hear the sound of voices speaking into telephones, though these voices were muted as well, and she wondered if perhaps the offices had been soundproofed.

Stollins reached a window and stopped. His face was illuminated slightly, making his flesh look almost orange. He then motioned with an index finger and whispered
the broadcast booth.
Violeta looked inside. Brinkley was sitting before a microphone, looking as dapper as always in his tortoiseshell glasses and three-piece Savile Row suit. His tie clip was a diamond-studded lightning bolt, configured in the same style as the station logo.

On the wall next to the booth's window was a mounted loudspeaker. Beneath it was a red plastic button. Stollins pushed it, causing Violeta to start as Brinkley's voice broadcast through the passageway:
Have you ever, my dear listeners, noted the difference between a stallion and a gelding? The stallion stands erect, neck arched, mane flowing, champing at the bit, stomping the ground, seeking the female, while the gelding stands around half asleep, going into action only when goaded, cowardly, listless, with no interest in anything. Men, don't let this happen to you — remember, a man is only as old as his glands, and sometimes even the most hale among us need an injection of …

Stollins turned it off, smiled, and led Violeta and her blushing mother back to the lounge. The women sat in cushioned chairs and declined offers of coffee, tea, refrescos, and distilled water. They waited, fidgeting, and when Malfil Cruz leaned over to ask
How do you feel?
Violeta responded by saying
Good, mami, good.
Meanwhile, Violeta looked around. The walls were a pale blue. Her mother was flipping through an American newspaper, and Violeta could see her lips move when she stumbled upon words she was unsure of. Minutes passed, during which Violeta enjoyed the comfort of the chair, the clean scent in the air, and the flowers on the coffee table before her. Here the problems of northern México were as distant as the South Seas.

Brinkley appeared in the doorway of the lounge, smiling. He approached and spoke in the same low voice that his manager had used.

— Ahhh, Señora Cruz.
Violeta.
I'm so happy you both came.

He shook both their hands. His palms were cool, dry, and rendered supple through twice-daily applications of an
aloe-based cream. — Please, he said. — Come with me.

Once again the two women walked along the hallway. When they passed the broadcast booth they saw that Brinkley had been replaced by an older man wearing overalls and a red flannel shirt.

— That's Farmer Jeb, Brinkley said over his shoulder. — He does a show called
Farm Report.
It's very popular amongst our listeners. Radio XER caters to a primarily rural audience, you see.

He stopped before a door at the very end of the hallway. They all stepped inside and took seats at a small round table.

— You ladies have been offered something to drink, I trust?

— Claro, said Malfil.

Brinkley picked up the receiver and, switching to English, said: — We're here, Annabel.

A minute later a young woman in a tight-fitting skirt arrived with a tray bearing a pitcher of water and a trio of glasses. She set it on the table in front of Brinkley and left. After filling all three glasses, he took a long draught from one of them and smiled.

— All right, he said, — let's get down to business. We have a bit of work ahead of us.

He looked straight at Violeta. — I want you to say something for me. And remember, from now on we're using English.

— All right, responded Violeta.

— I want you to say
You are listening to Rose Dawn, high priestess of the Sacred Order of the Maya.

Violeta nodded, and said: — Joo are leestenin' to Rose Dawn, high priestess of the Sacred Order of the Maya.

Brinkley grinned and Violeta dropped her gaze to the top of the table. She felt ashamed of her inflected vowels, her mispronounced consonants, her overly compensated
h
's.

— Perfect, he said. — Delightful.

— No, doctor, I am sorry. I will work on my accent …

— No! Don't change a thing! We'll practise a little more tomorrow, all right?

The next day, and the day after that, Brinkley's limousine driver fought the same growling dogs, the same tight laneways, and the same embittered street dwellers, all in an effort to usher Violeta Cruz to the Sunshine Station from Between the Nations. Once there, she waited for Brinkley to finish his daily
Health Talk.
Then, for the next hour or so, he trained her in the fine art of radio broadcasting. He taught her which light meant that she was on the air (
The red one, señorita
) and he taught her how to speak into a microphone without distorting her voice (
Your mouth should always be about four inches away
). He taught her to keep her lips moistened (
It stops them from popping
) and he trained her to remain completely still while the broadcast light was on (
Trust me, the microphone picks up everything
). He taught her how to make her voice sound distant and impassive (
As though, my dear Violeta, you have come from another place and time
) and he taught her how to tell which caller had promise and which should be ignored (
It's called pain, my dear — if it's not there, move on to the next caller
).