Dr. Brinkley's Tower (22 page)

Violeta carefully inserted a nail into a tiny break in the seal and tore it open in a slow, steady line. Inside was a single bleached-white card. Her lips moved as her eyes roamed the surface.

— What is it?

Violeta gazed at her madre, a look of disbelief in her eyes. — It's Dr. Brinkley. He wants me to … he wants me to join him and his wife for dinner after the show next week!

That week, Malfil and Violeta Cruz travelled to nearby Nava, their moods so enlivened they argued only once, in the middle of the trip, when Malfil suggested with a smirk that the good doctor looked at Violeta with more than professional respect in his eyes. In response, Violeta challenged her mother by saying
Mami, he is a married man.
Malfil in turn accused Violeta of suffering from either the naivety of youth or sheer stupidity, at which point Violeta accused her mother of being filthy-minded and rude. For the next ten minutes they both sat stiffly, gazing from their respective sides of the bus.

In Nava they looked up a locally famous seamstress who was rumoured to make gowns for the wife of the Coahuilan governor. By the end of the week Señora Veracruz had produced a sea-blue dress with ruffles running around the neckline, a tapering bodice, and a ballooning of fabric at the hips.

— Mija, Malfil said, with tears in her eyes. — You look like a goddess.

On the morning of Violeta's invitation, her mother took her to Corazón's newest business establishment: two and a half weeks earlier, a peluquería had opened on one of the side streets connecting avenidas Hidalgo and Cinco de Mayo in the east end of the pueblo. There a middle-aged woman named Tabita rinsed Violeta's sumptuous dark hair with rosewater and then piled it atop her head in a decorative fall of pins, ribbons, and barrettes. When she was done, Violeta looked five years older, and her piercing jade eyes seemed as big as plums. Her walk home was accompanied by frank stares, repeated calls of
Mamacita!
and at least one proposal of marriage.

Once at home, Malfil treated what little was left of her daughter's fingernails with a paste made from crushed beetle shells, which tasted so bitterly poisonous that Violeta wouldn't be tempted to succumb to her favourite nervous habit in front of the Brinkleys. That afternoon the two waited together, Malfil turning to her daughter at one point and saying: — You are my whole world. You know this, don't you, mija?

— Sí, mami, answered her daughter. — I know this.

— If anything ever happened to you I would die.

— Mami, said Violeta. — Please.

Her limousine arrived at five o'clock. In evening slippers last worn by her mother at her own wedding, Violeta barely survived the dusty, uneven laneway separating her house from the open door of the vehicle. She arrived at the station at half-past and, as always, lubricated her vocal cords with a cup of hot water flavoured with lemon. She was behind her
microphone precisely at six o'clock, at which time the Rose Dawn theme filled the station.

It was a draining show. Violeta found that she couldn't concentrate on the stories told by her listeners, and several times she had to ask them to repeat themselves, which she got away with by pleading that she had accidentally fallen into a regressive trance. At two minutes past seven o'clock, the broadcast booth relinquished to Fay Parker, the portly host of
Victuals for Visitors
, Violeta took a seat in the XER lounge. Her thin hands gripped her kneecaps. At five minutes past seven, Dale Stollins arrived. He looked at her.

— Why, Miss Dawn, you do look lovely today.

He led her outside and helped her into the limousine. As they drove, the driver kept sneaking glances at her in the rear-view mirror. Violeta, meanwhile, gazed out the backseat window, savouring the soft, buttery leather beneath her. The town of Del Río thinned as they drove. The houses grew farther and farther apart, until they were replaced altogether by neatly furrowed grape fields, old wooden barns, and pastureland. They passed beneath immense weeping cypress trees that hung over the roadway and tickled the top of the limousine. Violeta opened her window and felt the warm breeze on her face; she could hear the chirrup of crickets, the soft purr of the car's motor, and the throaty bedspring wheeze made by bullfrogs. They passed a swamp, and for a half-minute or so she could smell putrid water. When they finally stopped, the sun was just starting to drop, turning the sky a dusky purplish colour.

— We're here, the driver said.

He got out and opened her door. Violeta stepped out before
a huge pink-stucco mansion with turrets and fountains and rose gardens and tennis courts and marble Roman columns and a swimming pool the size of a Corazón de la Fuente city block. There was also a miniature zoo stocked with dozens of Texan deer and antelope, all of which, upon hearing the closing of the car door, gawked at Violeta while vacuously chewing. The driver pushed open tall wrought-iron gates bearing the initials
JRB.

— Follow me, he said, and they walked along a path leading through a topiary garden. The bushes, Violeta noticed, had all been groomed to resemble animals that Brinkley had reportedly seen in the jungles of South America: tigers, rhinoceros, various monkeys, anaconda snakes. They arrived at a pair of arched oak doors that had been stained the same light pink as the rest of the house.

The driver knocked. The door was opened by an elderly Mexican gentleman in a butler's uniform. Everybody smiled, and the driver said he would wait in the car. He then disappeared behind a magnolia pruned to resemble a hippopotamus.

— Buenas noches, said the butler. — I am Ricardo. This way, por favor.

He led her towards a room so lofty that Violeta's immediate reaction was to crane her neck and gaze at the distant ceiling, which had been decorated with a fresco of chubby, trumpeting angels. Ricardo gestured towards a high-backed chair and said
Por favor, señorita.
Violeta continued to gape; neither her eyes nor her mind was sufficiently trained to absorb the opulence before her. The chandeliers, the leaded etched windows, the gleaming floors, the antique furniture, the grand piano — all of it melded, producing a single, overwhelming impression.

The butler left and Violeta waited in the cool, cavernous room. She sat with her back straight, hands folded in her lap, wondering what sort of dinner might be served in a house like this. Probably something that came under a dome of glass, like she'd seen in movies detailing the life of México's aristocracy.

The doctor entered, beaming.

— So there you are, he said in Spanish. — How kind of you to join me.

— You have a beautiful house, doctor.

— Oh, it's nothing. Would you like some champagne?

— Sí, Violeta said, as though champagne were something she enjoyed most weekends.

Brinkley turned. Violeta listened to his footsteps dwindle in volume until they stopped being sounds altogether. The doctor returned with Ricardo trailing along behind. Grim-faced, the butler was carrying a silver tray bearing two shallow, wide-brimmed glasses. He lowered the tray before Violeta. She took a glass. Brinkley took the other. When he made no motion to sit down, Violeta hopped to her feet, accidentally spilling a few sticky drops on her dress.

The doctor held up his glass, looked her in the eye, and said: — To Rose Dawn, high priestess of the Sacred Order of the Maya.

They touched glasses, and Violeta let her first exposure to alcohol pass over her lips. — It's delicious, she said.

— I'm glad you like it. Later, if it would please you, I could show you my wine cellar. I say, you must be famished.

— No, she said. — Well … I suppose I am a little hungry.

— Good! Come. I'll show you to the dining room.

They set off, along hallways and beneath archways, passing a succession of grand rooms. Violeta peered in each one, feeling simultaneously dazed and oddly at home. The first was stocked, from floor to ceiling, with books; Violeta wished she could go in there and read them all, thinking this would then give her the knowledge and the sophistication of the doctor himself. The next room was filled with animal heads, each mounted on the wall and looking expressionless; this room unnerved Violeta, and she was glad to pass it. The third room was the strangest of all, in that it contained a huge table covered in green felt that had, around its edges, six holes the size of apples. It occurred to her, as it had in the past, that gringos were a different breed, with mores and customs that never ceased to mystify her.

They came to a chandelier-lit room housing a long, narrow table that could have sat about three dozen dinner guests. At the far end of the table, next to a bay window overlooking the estate's zoo, were two place settings and the opened champagne bottle, submersed in a bucket of ice.

— But, doctor, there are only settings for two.

Brinkley glanced towards the end of the table, as though this news surprised him as well. He turned to her, looking so unaccountably regretful that Violeta worried she might have said something wrong.

— Ah, he said. — My wife.

He paused long enough that Violeta began to wonder whether this was the only explanation he would offer.

— Violeta, he said sheepishly. — Back home in North Carolina, we have a thing called a shotgun wedding. Might you know what that is?

— No, doctor. I'm afraid that I don't.

— It's when the father of a young woman decides that her relationship with her young man demands the sanctification of God. That is where the shotgun comes in. The young man, I'm afraid, has little to say in the matter.

— I think I understand.

— It was a long, long time ago. We were scarcely older than you are now, my dear. My marriage, I confess, has been a charade for some time now. She has gone to live with her dear old mother in Richmond.

— You mean … you are preparing to divorce?

— Yes, Violeta. That is the long and the short of it. But please, we have a wonderful meal to look forward to. Let's talk no longer of unhappy subjects. Please, have some more champagne. There's vichyssoise on the way.

Vichyssoise turned out to be a cool potato soup that both refreshed Violeta and left her tongue feeling enlivened. She drank a little more champagne, such that by the time their salad arrived — a mixture of clover and a seedless dark purple fruit she was pretty sure didn't grow in the northern hemisphere — she had found the courage to ask the doctor the thing that most intrigued her.

— Dr. Brinkley?

— Sí, Violeta.

— I was just wondering about your … your Compound Operation. I was just wondering if it, you know, is like Rose Dawn, or whether it actually …

The doctor chortled so exuberantly that a morsel of violet fruit emitted from his mouth, arced through the air, and landed on the surface of a medieval oil painting.

— If it really
works
? Ah, my dear Violeta, you really are a delight. And don't worry … that is exactly the question that surfaces with the greatest regularity. And I must admit it is a fair question, efficacy being the concern foremost in both the mind of the public and the mind of a responsible physician. Well, I'm here to tell you, young lady, that the proof is in the pudding. I myself have had the full Compound Operation four times, and I am proud to say that I have the vigour of a man half my age. I'd also like to add that only the goats in question suffered any deleterious side effects.

Brinkley beamed in a such a pronounced manner that Violeta couldn't help but follow suit.

— You see, Violeta, the male reproductive system and the female reproductive system are like …

He gazed out the window towards his zoo, which had turned a pale indigo under the moon.

— They are like deer and antelope. They are related, and yet completely different, animals. Without the full and able functioning of the reproductive system, the male of the species withers and dies. This is a medical fact. Without the able functioning of the prostate, the male suffers a diminishment of the secretions responsible for energy, for acute mental functioning … even the ability to experience joy. It has been scientifically proven that only the surgical implantation of a billy goat's reproductive apparatus will remedy this. In fact, I am now indicating the Compound Operation for all men past the age of forty-five, not just the ones suffering from marital impediments. What I tell people is this: you can't be a stallion when age has turned you into a gelding. Do you understand, Violeta?

— Sí, she said, shocked at some of the things he had just told her. At the same time, she felt mildly thrilled. In México men did not talk of such things with women, particularly with women who were only nearing adulthood. Struggling not to blush, she already felt as though she was a long, long way from her ravaged little village on the wrong side of the Río Grande.

— Why, said Brinkley, — I have patients who are on their fifth and even sixth Compound Operation. Would they do that if their needs weren't being satisfied?

Brinkley's face then fell, and he looked at the surface of the table with the rueful expression of someone who had travelled a great distance and had not found what he was seeking.

— But I'll tell you, my dear. They say that America is the land of freedom, of laissez-faire, of capitalism unbound. Well, that's true if you're a Rockefeller. But if you're from a poor mining town in North Carolina, there are forces to keep you at your station. There is a structure that wants to keep you there. The hounding that I get … Just this morning I received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service in which they asked for a most unfair settlement. One that would severely compromise myself, and the foundations I support, were I to follow its recommendations to the letter. And don't get me started on the American Medical Association, who'd rather run me out of town than acknowledge my success. Do you know why, Violeta? Because my achievements upset the apple cart. My accomplishments, they believe, take too big a slice of the pie. Am I making any sense?