No Job for a Lady (25 page)

“Oh…”

She gives that delightful spontaneous laugh again. “Don’t fret about it. Becket was more political than saintly. The Pope made him a saint to annoy the king.”

As the carriage makes its way to the famous Floating Gardens, we spot the oddest sight: a slaughter shop. The stone building looks like a fortress. Around the entrance are hundreds of tired-looking mules on which men are hanging meat. Only one wagon is being loaded, but as I learned during my walk on the street two days ago, after rubbing the bony sides of the pack animals, the meat is just as palatable as when hauled in carts.

The carts are built like a chicken coop and elevated on two large wheels. On each side of the coop and lying in a large heap on the bottom is the meat. Astride the pile sits a half-clad fellow, and in front, on the outside, sits the “bloody” driver.

Trudging along in a string of about forty are men with baskets filled with the gory refuse, from which the blood runs in little rivers, until they look as if they have actually bathed in gore.

Having gotten a dose of it on the street, I am not as shocked and disgusted as Lily.

“Oh my … what a dreadful sight.” Lily looks aghast. “Almost spoils one’s appetite for lunch.”

43

When the carriage reaches its waterfront destination, we alight and are instantly surrounded with boatmen, neatly clad in suits consisting of a white linen blouse and pants.

Each clamors for us to try his boat, shouting in Spanish and English. The crowd is so dense that it is impossible to move. As there is no regular price, we have to make a bargain, so we select a strong brown fellow, who, although he presses close up to us, has not uttered a word, while the rest have been dwelling on the merits of their boats.

We go with him to the edge of the canal to look at his little flat vessel covered with a tin roof. White linen keeps out the sun at the sides, and a pink calico cloth edged with red and green fringe covers very flat seats.

The bottom is scrubbed very white and the Mexican tricolors float from the pole at the end.

“Let’s take this one,” Lily says. “Don’t worry about those hard seats.”

She signals the footman, who rode at the back of the carriage, and he comes running with large, soft, comfy cushions.

I ask the boatman his price. “Six
norteamericano
dollars,” he replies.

She is willing to pay without question, but I say, “No, no, it’s too much.”

After much debating and deliberating, he sets his price at one dollar, which I accept and insist upon paying, since Lily has provided the land transportation and picnic lunch.

The Floating Gardens, La Viga, is the prettiest sight I have yet seen in Mexico. Sunday is market day, and the waters are crowded with boats containing goods being taken into the city and manufactured items being sent out.

Some boats are packed full of fresh vegetables; others contain gay-colored birds, which the boatman says the
indios
trap in the mountains and bring to market here. Many boats are packed with exquisite flowers from stem to stern, all but where the boatman stands with a long pool to push the vessel through the water.

In many boats, work is being done en route: While a man pilots his boat over the glassy waters, the ever-busy woman aboard weaves wreaths, making bouquets from the stock before her.

Such roses! As I inhale their perfume, I recall kind friends at home and wish they were here with me. There are daisies, honeysuckle, bachelor’s buttons, in a variety unknown in the States. And the poppies! Surely no other spot on earth brings forth such a variety of shade, color, and size. They are even finer than the peonies in the States.

As these boatfuls of flowers pass us, the
indios
look at us with pleasant smiles and we answer with cheerful salutes.

We see that people along the banks have decorated their simple straw huts with long plants, which contain yellow and red flowers. Our boatman tells us that they plait them at the top in a diamond shape, and not only put them on their homes but use them to decorate the pulque shops and stretch them across streets as a communal decoration.

The most disagreeable sight is the butcher at work. Scattered along the shoreline are large copper kettles filled with boiling water. I gag as a man holds a little brown pig down with his knee and cuts its throat, while another holds a small bowl in which he catches the blood.

When I turn my head, in that split second, I have a flash of my body lying on a white stone while an Aztec priest with a jaguar face hovers over me, holding a long, curved knife; the priest is covered in blood, lots of blood.

“That is a ghastly sight.” Lily rubs goose bumps on her arms. “Wish we didn’t have to see that.”

Unfortunately, farther up, we see the first work completed. On sticks, put in the ground around a large charcoal fire, are the different pieces of pork roasting.

“Look.” She points to very large drooping willows along the bank that are crowded with men, women, and children.

The men are nursing the babies and smoking the pipe of peace, while the women are washing their clothes. They are not dressed in the height of fashion by our standards, but what would be the extreme full dress of their own class.

“Isn’t it wonderful,” Lily says. “The women seem so happy and cheerful and contented, as though they are queens. They are even dressed in what must be their Sunday clothes, and all they are doing is laundry.”

I suspect that the women on the bank washing clothes by hand are probably thinking how wonderful it would be to be cruising by in a well-shaded boat.

Lily looks back at them for a moment, as if there is something about their simple existence that she has missed in her own life.

“Ready for lunch?” she asks. Before I answer, she grabs the picnic basket that was taken from the trunk of the carriage and put on the boat by her footman.

I am rather expecting potato salad, beef sandwiches, and pickles, which is what we would have taken to a picnic back home, but then Lily lifts up the white linen cloths that are protecting the food, French food—small pieces of pastries and breads with vegetables on top and different-colored cheese spreads; pastry puffs and baguettes; fruit salad; cucumber cups; chicken tarragon sandwiches. Then she lifts the last cloth.

“Surprise!” She laughs with delight and claps her hands as she reveals bean and cheese wrapped in tortillas. “When the dining room manager came to my suite to discuss the picnic menu, I told him you would be my guest, and he told me about your preference for simple peon food. I hope you don’t mind having champagne. I know it’s not quite the drink of the common people of this country, but I think champagne goes with everything. Don’t you?”

“Yes.” I am thrilled. Mexican food and champagne on ice—what could be more perfect?

As she pours me a drink, which I now know not to gulp, but to sip slowly, I ask if the boatman can share our lunch.

“Of course!” Lily insists that he stop and join us and that he also have a glass of champagne and her gourmet French food.

The boatman tells us he has never tasted such food. His hearty thanks, good appetite, and humble, beholding words between mouthfuls do me a world of good.

White we eat and watch some virile
caballeros
and the flirtatious señoritas frolicking along the shoreline, the reporter in me makes me ask Lily a blunt question.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking this, but why did you invite me to lunch? Please don’t get me wrong; I’ve very glad you did, but I’m puzzled. I suspect you have more requests for interviews than you can accept.”

“You are a smart girl.” Lily looks at me in a way that makes me believe she really means it. “So, I am going to tell you the truth. It was Frederic who put me up to inviting you to lunch, but I must tell you I’m glad he did, because I’m very pleased to have gotten to know you. Not only are you delightful but you remind me of myself when I was your age—determined and wanting the world. Do you mind my asking your age?”

I shake my head no as I quickly swallow my food. “Nineteen.”

Lily looks up from the rim of her champagne glass. “Nellie, my dear, you definitely are a true woman, but I’ll let you in on a secret. You can’t fool a woman about age, especially me. I’m a professional. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d say you are around twenty-one or twenty-two.”

I just smile.

“Not to worry. It’s our secret. I’ll let you in on a secret of mine. Frederic thinks he’s older than I am.”

After we stop laughing, I ask her, “Why did Mr. Gebhard want you to spend time with me?”

“Frederic has never had the best of relationships with reporters, and your being a reporter has him worried. He fears you will reveal to your paper that he is buying prize stallions descended from Cortés’s warhorses, while claiming they are ordinary Thoroughbreds to avoid customs duties. That, my dear, is how the rich get even richer, cheating on taxes and paying people to help them do it.”

My mother would say that greed is universal.

“Also, I would not appreciate the negative publicity generated by such a story. So … may I assume that this is our secret and you will not reveal Frederic’s scheme to your paper?”

I think for a moment. Not because I plan to, but only that I find it interesting how the rich are always trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes all the time.

“You assume correctly. I promise not to utter a word about seeing you or Mr. Gebhard. I came here to report about Mexico and its people; that is all.”

“Thank you, Nellie, I really appreciate this.”

This gives me a window of opportunity, and I decide to take it. I’ve been dying to know why Mr. Gebhard’s coach was at the museum and if she was there and why.

“Lily, this morning I went to the museum, and as I was leaving, I saw that really fancy coach the Mexican president has loaned you and Frederic.” I pause for a moment because I know I need to word this right, in order to get her to tell me. “I didn’t see you, and I was wondering whether Mr. Gebhard was there because he shares my interest in Aztec artifacts.”

“I wasn’t there and have no interest in the objects. And you are correct. It was Frederic. He has the finest collection of Aztec artifacts in the world and is thinking of donating some pieces to the museum.”

Her neutral tone gives me the feeling that Lily isn’t telling me the truth—or at least not the whole truth. But I’m curious as to whether Mr. Gebhard is the “trade secret” rich man who is supporting Traven’s work.

“Then Mr. Gebhard must know Traven. He’s an archaeologist I met on the train.”

“Of course, darling! Don’t you find it odd that he goes only by Traven? The man’s so secretive. I’ve done my best to find out why, but he’s mum. Tell me, what are your plans for tomorrow?”

“I’m thinking of going to that ancient city called Teo—something.” I wasn’t really, but I threw it out to see what reaction I would get.

“We’re going there and I was going to suggest you come along with us. We’ll see Traven when we get to Teo. Why don’t you join us?” Not waiting for a reply, she continues, all excited. “I insist.
El presidente
is loaning us a stagecoach. It’s much too dusty for an open carriage. You will find it more comfortable than riding in a hired coach with those hard seats they all have. And the road to the place is infested with bandidos. You’ll be much safer with us. We’ll have an armed escort.”

I’m amazed. Everyone and everything appears to be pointing me to Teo. I have to wonder whether La Bruja is using some of her occult powers to lure me there.

“It’s settled,” Lily says, without waiting for an answer. “You’re going with us.”

“Señoritas,” our boatman says, “the Floating Gardens. There.” He points ahead. “La Viga is about six to twelve feet deep and thirty feet wide. The trees you see lining it on both sides are willow and silver maple trees. It starts from Lake Tezcuco, about eight miles from the city, forms a ring, and goes back to the same source. Look.” He points to an area in front of us. “There are the Floating Gardens. They are just above the Custom House.”

Lily gestures to where he is pointing. “Isn’t that solid land?”

“No, señorita. With your permission, we will take a canoe and go in among them.”

We climb from our boat into an even smaller dugout. Wading in the water, he pushes us under a low stone bridge, at the risk of being beheaded. We salute the owners of a little castle built of cane and roofed with straw and go on, in high anticipation, to see the gardens.

I feel like we are entering into some secret fairyland, for in blocks of fifteen by thirty feet the gardens are nestled, surrounded by water and rising two feet above its surface. The ground is fertile and rich and anything will grow in them. Some have fruit trees, others vegetables, and some look like one bed of flowers suspended in the water.

“This is absolutely breathtaking.” I am in awe. Never have I seen anything so pleasing to the eye. All around in the little canals through which we drift are hundreds of elegant water lilies.

“May we take some?” I ask our boatman.

“Sí.”

Eagerly, we gather them with a desire that never seems to be satisfied, and even when our boat is full, we still clutch ones that are “the prettiest yet.”

On the solid part of some of the gardens, cattle and horses, sheep and pigs are tied to trees to save them from falling into the water.

The quaint little homes are some of the prettiest features; they are surrounded by trees and flowers, and many of them have exquisite little summer houses, built also of cane, which command a view of the gardens. The hedges, or walls, are all of roses, which are in bloom, sending forth a perfume that is entrancing. The gardeners water their plots every day, the boatman tells us.

They fasten a dipper on the end of a long pole and with it they dip up water and fling it over their vegetables in quite a deft and speedy manner.

“Do the gardens really float?” Lily asks me.

“No, they don’t anymore. They are stationary, according to my librarian, Mrs. Percy.”

“Nellie, please do not spoil the pretty belief about them by telling me the truth.”