Dr. Brinkley's Tower (24 page)

Refusing to be defeated, Francisco decided to visit the person whom he trusted most when it came to matters of the heart. He crossed the plaza and, as always, found his elderly friend sitting on the bench outside his house, facing the Pozo de Confesiones. Inside, Francisco could hear Laura Velasquez humming delightedly.

— Hola, Francisco, said the molinero, his voice sounding stronger than it had in years.

— Hola, señor.

— Sit, sit.

— Gracias.

For a minute or two neither said a thing. Francisco knew that he didn't have to explain; the molinero would have seen it in the heaviness of Francisco's gait and in the sadness of his expression.

Finally, Francisco spoke.

— Tell me, Señor Pántelas. Have you ever been spurned? The molinero chortled. — Have I ever been spurned?

Listen to me, my young friend. I have been spurned by as many women as have accepted me into their hearts. The point is this: just because a woman rejects you once doesn't mean she will continue to reject you. Do you understand me, joven?

— I don't think I do, Señor Pántelas.

— Women are capricious, wilful, unsure of what is contained in the recesses of their own desire. They are not single-minded creatures as we are, Francisco. They are multifaceted, perpetually careering like a storm let loose in the desert. It's what makes them so wonderful. It's what makes them worth fighting for.

— Now I really don't understand.

— Do you love Violeta Cruz?

— Sí.

— I know you do. I can see the pain in your eyes. I'll ask you another question. In your heart of hearts, do you think she still has feelings for you?

Francisco hung his head as though ashamed, and said: — Sí, molinero. I do.

— I think she does too. Something is stopping her from acting on those feelings, and you must free her from its chains. Do you understand? You must not roll over and give up. You must fight to win her back.

— But how do I do this?

— Ay, said the molinero. — That's the trick, isn't it? I tell you, Francisco, if love wasn't such a difficult game, winning wouldn't be so much fun.

Again the two lapsed into silence. Francisco thought about the molinero's counsel. How could he, a penniless villager, take on a wealthy, famous doctor like Brinkley? How would this be possible? The more he thought about it, the more he became angered by the unevenness of the playing field upon which he competed. Yet as he grew angry, his thoughts sharpened, and he felt a vengeful strength fomenting inside him.
Somehow he would get that runty, four-eyed hijo de puta. The only question left in his stirring mind was how.

— Now let me be, said the molinero. — Laura and I are leaving for Saltillo on Monday morning, and at my age I'll need at least a day and a half to rest up. Oh. And one other thing.

— What's that, Señor Pántelas?

— You are young. You have a heart that works. You have legs that carry you without complaint.

— So?

— Be happy, joven. Be happy.

For once, Francisco didn't listen to the old man's advice. He was halfway to his home when he stopped suddenly, his mind a blaze of inspiration, his body humming with a suspicion that could easily be turned into action. Taking an energizing breath, he turned and marched all the way to the bridge separating Corazón de la Fuente from los Estados Unidos, a tuft of risen dust hanging behind him. As he stepped onto the bridge's old wooden slats, the Mexican border guard noted Francisco's narrowed eyes and bristling gait and concluded that this might not be the day to ask the solidly built young man for the usual bribe.

The gringo border guard, a small man whose sensitivity to the sun demanded that he spend all day in his well-appointed cabin, was not as astute.

— Hey there! he called as Francisco strode past him. — You need a durned transit visa!

Francisco stopped and slowly turned, his features as tight as piano wire.

— That may be true, he said. — But it's also true I am much bigger than you are, pendejo. It's also true I'm in no
mood for you and your hijo de puta transit visa. Ask me again, and I throw you in the river.

The border guard considered this for the briefest of moments. — Have a nice stay, he said, and waved Francisco through.

TRITE TO HIS WORD, THE MOLINERO SPENT ALL OF
Sunday harnessing his energies, despite Laura's winking suggestion that the best rest was acquired after carnal exertion. The following morning, just after the sun's fulminating rise, the pair caught a lift with a muchacho who delivered fruit to the store of Fajardo Jimenez. They rode to Piedras Negras in a camioneta smelling of guava and plantain. Throughout, the molinero chatted with the driver, who seemed interested to hear that this gracious old man with the thick white hair was taking this girl — his granddaughter, probably — to Saltillo to have some sort of metal restraining device placed on her teeth. As they continued chewing the fat, the molinero talked about life in Corazón de la Fuente, specifically how the town had grown so much richer, and so much more difficult to live in, since its windfall.

— You know what they say, commented the driver. — There's no such thing as a free lunch, verdad?

The hombre dropped them at the Piedras bus depot, and
refused the pesos the molinero offered him.

— No, no, he said. — Buy your granddaughter some toothpaste on me.

He then drove off before the molinero had a chance to correct him.

Then came the difficult part of the journey: six hours in a rickety old diesel bus named
La Concepción Inmaculada
, in which they were stuffed into a row of seats already filled with a pair of Kickapoo Indians, a trio of schoolchildren, a dozing grandmother, and a hobbled chicken that periodically shat on the molinero's pant leg. Seeing this, Laura laughed till tears formed in her mirthful dark eyes. For the molinero, her delight was almost worth having his trousers soiled.

As the day progressed, the air inside the bumping tin vehicle became thin and broiling, as if the heat from the sun were using up the oxygen. Too hot to doze, the passengers turned quiet and still; during the middle hours of the day they mostly stared at the desert scrub extending forever on either side of the bus. It was dusk when they finally pulled into Saltillo, the right side of the bus an ember in the failing sun. The tired couple found a small hotel off the central plaza and went to sleep early. As a result they awoke before dawn and admired a sky lit only by stars. They made their way to the market and, in the cool of morning, ate a breakfast of cheese, coffee, and fresh strawberries at the stand of a vendor who kept breathing on his hands to keep them warm.

Slowly the street came alive with cleaners and stray dogs and men hawking trinkets. Laura and her molinero watched for the longest time, feeling pleased to be amidst the bustle of an actual city. Around nine o'clock they found their ultimate
destination on a side-street home to ironmongers and clotheslines. The couple stepped out of smeary daylight and climbed up a dark stairway to the sound of hammers striking metal. At the top of the stairs, towards the end of a grimy hallway in which a brother and sister were playing jacks while dressed only in underpants, the couple found a door marked
Dentista.
They pushed it open and found an hombre in a white smock sitting in a large chair, drinking a glass of strong, aromatic coffee. He jumped out of the chair and smiled.

— You must be Laura Velasquez, he said.

— Sí, said Laura.

— And you, sir? he said, extending his hand towards the molinero. — You're Roberto Pántelas? The one who sent me the cable, sí? The cable about helping your … Is she your granddaughter?

— No, said the molinero with an agreeable smile. — She's my fiancée.

This information stymied the dentist, who blinked in the manner of a man with dust in his eyes. The molinero occupied these awkward moments by looking around the office, noticing how its impeccable cleanliness was at odds with its location. The dentist, having recovered, gestured towards the chair in which he'd just been sitting.

— Bueno, let's get started. Laura, would you please take a seat … Señor Pántelas, you could go for a walk, or you're welcome to stay and watch. It's your choice.

The molinero looked over at Laura, who understandably seemed a little ill at ease.

— I'll stay, he said.

There was a row of plain high-backed chairs against the
wall of the office. The molinero sat in the one closest to the action and watched as Laura was fitted with a clanking copper-and-steel contraption that would have resembled a fox trap were it not for all the wires, bands, and hooks that dangled from it. As the dentist crammed the device into Laura's gaping mouth — it was a procedure that involved nitrous oxide and more than a little forearm strength — the molinero found himself falling even more deeply in love. It must have hurt like a real hijo de puta, and yet she didn't complain, wince, or reflexively push away the dentist's muscled hands. Watching the procedure, the old man realized he was seeing Laura's soul writ large and, by extension, the soul of the Mexican woman: it was that equal mixture of acquiescence and bravery, that sublime contradiction of vulnerability and strength. It was no wonder he had loved so many women in his long, long life, and every single one of them Mexicana (with maybe the odd Guatemalteca and an occasional Hondureña thrown in for good measure).

A long hour passed. With the apparatus wedged in place, the dentist began tightening it with a series of screwdrivers, ratchets, and needle-nosed pliers.

— Almost done, he said, and proceeded to equip Laura with a leather headdress that looked like the helmets worn by American football players, albeit with a metal coil that wrapped around the lower half of Laura's face. Again the molinero felt himself sink a little deeper into the wondrous tailspin called love.

When the dentist held a mirror for his patient, Laura turned her head to both sides and, in a voice warmed by gratitude, said: — Gracias, doctor. Muchas, muchas gracias.

— It's the birth of ortodoncia, commented the dentist. — Trust me, it will help many, many people.

They ate at a taquería around the corner, the dentist having left a small aperture in the front of the apparatus, through which Laura fed herself tortilla stuffed with calf brains and a white salted cheese. During the bumpy ride back to Piedras Negras there was a gradual shifting of bodies, so that by the time the bus passed the city of Monclova, the seat in front of Laura was filled with dark-eyed children, all of whom stared at her while picking their noses. By the time the bus was rattling through Sabinas, however, she had disarmed them with games of patty cake, peek-a-boo, and spotting animal shapes in the cacti; the molinero doubted they even noticed her dental contraption any longer. In Piedras the couple managed to get a ride in a small, fume-spewing lorry headed east. Shortly before they turned onto the roadway leading into Corazón, the truck engulfed by white-blue sky, Laura turned and asked — Do you hear that?

— Hear what?

— Music.

— Music?

— I can barely make it out. It's like it's very close and far, far away at the same time.

— Qué raro, offered the molinero. — There must be a radio somewhere. But with my hearing, it could be blaring in my ear and I'd barely notice it.

Laura shrugged and closed her eyes. She was on the sunny side of the lorry, her face bathed in dusty light. The driver left them at the edge of town, well beyond the ejido, claiming that he was running low on time. After a few minutes they hitched
a ride with a rag dealer who had rigged a cart to a burro. By the time they reached the centre of town, they were being followed by a half-dozen excited children, all of whom were yelling
Laura, Laura, show us your braces!
or
Laura, Laura, did you bring us all something?
Sure enough, Laura climbed down from the donkey cart and started handing out goat-milk candies she'd purchased in the Saltillo market. When all of the children had one, she made her rounds to the elderly. From the stoop of his little house the molinero heard her being greeted, over and over, by those whose adult children had been murdered by the revolution.

Laura stayed busy for the rest of the day, though the molinero noticed that she kept rubbing her jaw and temples. Yet whenever he asked her if she was bothered by the braces, she would say
No, it's nothing
and then smile weakly beneath the layers of copper, steel, and cloth. That night, when her long day was finally finished and a relative quiet had fallen over the village, she lay down beside the molinero. After tossing and turning for a few minutes, she said: — There it is again.

— The music?

— No. You can't hear it? This time it's a man talking in English. I think … I think it's Dr. Brinkley.

— How could that be?

— I don't know. It comes and goes. I don't understand it. I think maybe it's my imagination.

The next day Laura awoke, fixed the molinero his breakfast, and immediately went to do her errands. And while she presented a happy face to the townsfolk, all of whom asked her questions about Saltillo and her trip to the dentist, there were many times when the molinero observed her in quiet
moments rubbing her ears and looking as though she was suffering from a low, constant pain. Meanwhile he visited each of his neighbours, a process that involved a full day and several cups of bitter, burnt-tasting coffee. His intent was to ask if any of them listened to Brinkley's station, and they all told him the same thing: unless Malfil Cruz's daughter was on, the last thing they'd listen to was those infernal hillbilly jingles that Brinkley always played.

The next day was even worse. Laura began to look haggard with lack of sleep, and she no longer smiled when dealing with the senior citizens under her care. Several times during the day the molinero caught her placing a damp cloth on her forehead, and he noticed that she had taken to sighing, often and loudly. Shortly after lunch, the molinero came to the rare decision that he needed a drink. He put on his hat and boots and ambled across town to Carlos Hernandez's cantina. As he made his way across the plaza, he was stopped by an old, old man named Jaime de la Roya, who waved from his perch on a wrought-iron bench. Though Señor de la Roya was actually younger than the molinero, he was not blessed with the older man's health or vigour: his hands shook, his stomach didn't work properly, his eyes were failing, and he needed help to do most things. As such, he was one of the village elderly that Laura made a habit of visiting.