Dr. Brinkley's Tower (28 page)

TWO DAYS LATER, FRANCISCO AWOKE IN HIS SHARED
bedroom. The last residue of his hangover was finally gone, his distress now emotional rather than physical. He dressed in the same formal outfit in which he'd first visited Malfil Cruz, and he ate breakfast with his father and grandmother, both of whom were also dressed for Laura Velasquez's funeral. They ate in silence, the only sound the scraping of cutlery against metal plates.

When they were finished with their hotcakes, Francisco's father said to his son: — Would you like me to come with you?

— No, papi.

— Pues … if you need any help, just come and get me.

Francisco pulled his hat over his eyes and stepped into the laneway fronting his house. As he walked towards the molinero's, he watched the homeless arise, stretch, kiss their children awake, and make low twig fires. The streets were redolent with the smell of tortilla and burning wood. Chatter
spilled from doors opened to the day's rising heat, the topic of conversation always the same: the tower had taken the life of Laura Velasquez.

Francisco was just approaching the town's smaller plaza when he heard an odd sound. He stopped, listened carefully, and heard it again: it was a little like the noise made by air escaping from a punctured tire. This time, the sound persisted long enough that he was able to identify the direction from which it came. He turned and faced the darkened entranceway of a small home that had been abandoned during the revolution and left to become the domicile of a family of bats.

Pssst
he heard yet again.

The curandera, looking as wrinkled as an avocado left too long in the sun, was standing on a doorstep messy with guano and sawdust. She was perhaps five feet tall, had unclipped hairs sprouting from her chin, and wore a Kickapoo amulet around her neck. She was peering at Francisco so unnaturally that he instinctively started, even though he considered the rumours regarding the woman's satanic abilities to be the fodder of nitwits.

He cleared his throat. — Hola, señora, he said.

The curandera coughed and continued to peer at Francisco through the eye not entirely coated in a milky film. — You're Francisco Ramirez.

— I am, he answered.

— That's good, she croaked. — That's good.

— What's good, señora?

— I was hoping it would be someone I could trust. I was hoping it would be someone who could get the job done.

Francisco was surprised to find that his heart was beating irregularly and that his palms suddenly felt clammy, as though he had just wrapped them around a length of cool pipe.

— I promise you, he said. — I haven't got a clue what you're talking about.

She chortled, revealing peggy, yellowing teeth separated by dark spaces.

—
You
, she said. — It's going to be
you.
Yesterday I saw your face. Lifting in the smoke of my fire. That's how I knew. That's how I
know.

Francisco swallowed dryly and struggled to contain his breathing.

— You're speaking in riddles, señora. And I can't say I like it.

The old woman said nothing, preferring to gaze at Francisco with a delight that seemed mildly fiendish. Finally, she cleared her throat and spat so forcefully into the street that a puff of dust rose towards her shins.

— Good day, Francisco Ramirez. You know where to find me.

She ducked into the gloom of the ruined house, melting into the shadow of its interior. A second after that, he could hear only the flapping of bat wings and his own speeding thoughts.

Francisco straightened and continued walking towards the house of the molinero. He forced himself to chuckle. Clearly, the old woman was unbalanced, and capable of only the most deluded gibberish. A moment later his mirth evaporated and a chill ran through him. He remembered that on the day when Radio XER had gone on the air, the curandera
had stepped forward and proclaimed that this Dr. Brinkley was a fraud, and would harm the town. Though Francisco had jeered along with everyone else, it was also true that the fleetest of thoughts had run through his mind. It had been an uncomfortable thought, and Francisco had naturally chased it away before it could take root and spur action. Yet now, walking towards his heartbroken old friend, that thought returned to him. This time it refused to be banished so easily.

The old woman knows something.

Combatting the onset of a headache, Francisco Ramirez reached the plazita containing the old well. The confusion caused by the curandera's appearance was replaced by anger. He shook his head in disgust. Broken bottles were strewn around the plazita, and the gutters were clogged with every sort of refuse. A spent and razored brassiere hung from a denuded palo verde. Worse, the Pozo de Confesiones was now clearly being used as a toilet by those living rough on the streets, such that its clammy depths could no longer offer succour to those feeling guilty in thought or action.

He knocked on the molinero's wood-plank door. When there was no answer, he checked to see if the door was unlocked. He walked in and found the old man seated, shirtless, on the edge of his bed. Francisco's first observation was how slight the molinero had grown with age; Francisco was old enough to remember the days when Roberto Pántelas, still in his seventies, had been as big around the chest as the hacendero. Now Francisco could count each one of the molinero's ribs, protruding through papery, bluish skin. With each
breath, the old man wheezed.

Francisco sat beside his ancient friend, the straw mattress rustling and growing thin beneath his weight. He waited, saying nothing, wishing to touch the molinero but not feeling it was his place. The only thing he could give the molinero on this terrible morning was his nearness.

—Joven, the old man finally said, his voice so weak that Francisco had to struggle to hear it.

— Sí?

— Why is it that you and I are such close amigos, do you think?

— I don't know.

— I do. You have an old soul, whereas I am simply old. This gives us a lot to talk about.

Under any other circumstances, Francisco would have chuckled.

— Señor Pántelas, if you are feeling poorly I can tell the others that you …

— No, said the molinero. — No.

Francisco helped comb the old man's hair. He helped him brush his teeth with baking soda, and he applied a polish made from beeswax and lard to his creased leather boots. As he did so, Francisco felt a crushing sadness for his old compadre. Overnight, it seemed, grief had caused the years to catch up with the molinero, rendering him shaky and weak. Francisco went to the molinero's closet, which was neatly arranged, thanks to Laura, and pulled out a suit for him to wear. It was only when he was helping the molinero button his shirt that he noticed the hard, veinless lump in the middle of his chest.

— Señor, said Francisco. — What is that?

— It's nothing, the old man answered with an exhausted wave. — I've had it for years. Besides, who cares anyway? Now let's go.

Francisco held the old man's forearm as they walked along Avenida Hidalgo towards the town cemetery, which had the distinction of being the burial place of the infant grand-niece of Venustíano Carranza, the revolution's second interim president — her little coffin, it was said, had been no bigger than a hat box. They walked along a dusty path that wound through the gravestones, the molinero growing shakier and shakier as they approached the newly dug grave.

Francisco refused to let go of him, saying: — It's all right, my old friend. If you fall I will catch you.

Much of the town had turned out, the mourners including the mayor, the hacendero, and the hirsute store owner, Fajardo Jimenez. The cantina owner and his wife were there as well, though those with keen powers of observation noted that a tension seemed to have re-arisen between the two, for the couple were neither speaking nor holding hands. Meanwhile, the victim's parents were learning of the savage, incoherent pain caused by outliving one's child.

The molinero too was beginning to look as though he'd been transported to a world of eternal punishment. His eyes, having drained themselves a hundred times over in the past thirty-six hours, refused to produce tears, causing them to redden and burn. He began to tremble and to whimper piteously. Francisco firmed his grip on the old man's arm. The hacendero saw this and came over to take the other arm. In this way the molinero managed to remain on his feet.

Malfil and Violeta Cruz were there as well, though Francisco forced himself not to look in Violeta's direction, for fear that his anger and frustration might choose that inopportune moment to erupt. Madam Félix, meanwhile, looked resplendent in Castilian funeral garb — even her unused handkerchief was fashioned from black cotton lace. All of the Marias were in attendance as well, none crying more vociferously than Maria del Mampo, whose prominent larynx bobbed like a yo-yo as she wept. The curandera stood far off, beneath the speckled shade of a mesquite tree; there she muttered to herself while performing some sort of twisting motion with a handful of fireweed. Francisco commanded himself not to look in her direction either, as he was still feeling unnerved by their encounter.

They all waited. From somewhere nearby, the signal of Brinkley's damnable radio station could be heard, and they all knew that silencing it would involve far more than searching for whatever radio had been accidentally left on. There were a few uncomfortable coughs, and above, the wafting of vultures. The spear-like shadow thrown by the radio tower mocked them.

When the citizens of Corazón de la Fuente heard boot steps they looked up, thankful that Father Alvarez, after much pleading by the village faithful, had agreed to preside over Laura's funeral. He was, however, still dressed in secular garb, his hands notably — some would say bitterly — free of Bible, cross, or rosary.

The sky was bleached white. There was a dry, unpleasant wind. The whole world smelled of corn husks and wood. The Father's voice wavered with a sorrow not in any way feigned.

— Ashes to ashes, polvo al polvo …

As Alvarez spoke, the hacendero kept taking quick, flitting glances at Madam Félix. Even in mourning, he thought, she was as proud and noble as any woman he had ever known.
Life is so, so short,
he thought.
I've been a fool to have kept my feelings a secret for so long.
He lowered his eyes to Laura Velasquez's grave; the poor girl was in a closed plank coffin with a cross carved into the top. Though her death was tragic, it was a sobering reality that every person here would one day share Laurita's fate. The only difference would be in the details.

The hacendero returned his attention to the outdoor service, which was coming to a close.

— And so we say to you, O Lord, may your child Laura Velasquez slumber in peace, for she sleeps in the eternal grace of your kingdom.

There was a long, melancholy pause, during which the circular nature of life became, for just a few moments, poignant and obvious. After a while four campesinos appeared with rusting shovels, which they used to shovel dirt into the grave. When the first clod of dirt hit Laura's casket, her mother wailed and fell to her knees, clawing the earth like a madwoman. After a few minutes, a few local women, including the cantina owner's wife, pulled her away.

Just then the mayor, the cantina owner, and Father Alvarez moved into the hacendero's field of vision.

— We're going for a drink, said the cantina owner. — You will join us?

— Maybe. I don't know.

They nodded and grimly walked off. Malfil and Violeta Cruz drifted back towards the town, though they did so with a noticeable distance between them. The molinero stood at
the edge of the newly filled grave, his lower lip trembling, refusing to let Francisco Ramirez take him home. Seeing this, the hacendero felt his heart thud with both the wonder and the pain that come from being alive. He turned and noticed that Madam Félix was still in attendance. The hacendero filled his lungs and, in full view of those left, walked up to his amor.

— Hello, señora.

— Señor Garcia, she said, with practised formality.

— I was wondering if I may have the pleasure of escorting you back to your place of business.

The ensuing silence was total. The town's crows stopped cawing, the wind stopped rustling branches, the cries of Laura Velasquez's mother were muted. Madam peered up at him, amazed by this public proposal. — Claro que sí, she said in a quavering voice.

The hacendero held out his arm and she took it. He then walked with her along the path connecting the cemetery with the rest of the town.

— I have missed you, he said. — With everything that's been going on, I've been too busy to visit.

— I've missed you too. How is Diamante?

— I hired the Reyes brothers to replace his metal fence with one made of wood. It's about as straight as a drunkard's path but at least it's built. Time will tell. I am hopeful. I have to be.

— It's all so sad. Poor Laura.

— Poor molinero.

They reached Avenida Hidalgo. Heads turned, though not as many as once would have — there were so many newcomers who knew nothing of the not-so-secret history between
the town's hacendero and the town's brothel owner. Again the hacendero felt stupid. Imagine, hiding his feelings for all these years. And why? Madam's profession? His reputation as an aristocrat?
Ay, cabrón,
he thought.
This isn't España. Here, different things matter. Here, different rules apply.

He could feel the warmth of her hand transmit into his elbow. They reached Avenida de Cinco de Mayo, where the lineup to the House of Gentlemanly Pleasures was already halfway down the block. Madam unlocked the rear door and led the hacendero to her boudoir, where they made the sort of slow, gentle amor that arises only from the experience of sorrow — while not deliriously pleasurable, it leaves in its wake a gratifying comfort, and a strengthening of one's ability to tolerate the immense profundity that is life. They both lay on their backs and lit thin, fragrant cigarillos. Coils of blue-green smoke drifted towards the ceiling. A long time passed, during which they linked fingers and felt tired.