No Job for a Lady (26 page)

“The gardens did originally float. Mrs. Percy says they were built of weeds, cane, and roots and were banked up with earth. The Aztecs had not only their gardens on them but also their little homes, and they poled them around whenever they wished. They’re now rooted, but that doesn’t make them any less marvelous.”

We bask in the sun as our boatman pulls us through the gardens.

Scattered around in front of some of the homes are wooden crosses with cotton cloths tied to them, and I ask our boatman what they’re for.

“They are believed to prevent storms from visiting the land. The theory is that after the wind has played with the cotton cloth, it is unable to blow strong enough to destroy anything.”

Along each side of La Viga are beautiful
paseos,
nature pathways and horse trails bordered by large shade trees. The boatman tells us they form some of most beautiful carriage drives in the city.

“This is one of the things I wanted to see,” Lily says. “Look at all of the ladies and gentlemen on horseback.” She looks back at me. “Did you know this is also one of the favorite places for racing? Frederic hopes to come back here before we leave Mexico. Are you fond of fine riding?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have won some ribbons.”

“That’s fabulous! Once I tell Frederic about your love for horses, he will forget that you are a reporter.”

“Lily, look!” I point to two young fellows who are racing their horses bareback. What a fabulous exhibition.

My happy mood is suddenly quenched when I spot the tanned hide of a jaguar hanging up to dry on the wall of a cottage. The reality of what I experienced yesterday comes back and smacks me in the face. I turn my head so that Lily can’t see my features turn sour.

T
HE
F
LOATING
G
ARDENS

(
Six Months in Mexico
)

44

When I arrive back at my room, there is a note from Gertrude and a surprise: Roger is gone. Vanished without a trace.

Gertrude’s note is on the washbasin, but no message from Roger. Nothing. Nada. Not even a scribble letting me know that he has vacated and wishing me luck on my reporting, or inquiring how I feel after being attacked by nightmarish creatures on a public street two days ago.

He has simply taken his luggage and slipped away like a thief in the night. The only evidence in the room that he ever existed is a lingering scent of his cherry-scented pipe tobacco, and my annoyance at the affront. The one thing I hate more than being confronted is being ignored.

I sit down on the cot—now my bed—and pout. The fact he has made a quick and silent departure irks me no end. How dare he? He doesn’t know it, but he filled the void of my absent mother, despite being my unwanted traveling companion and verbal adversary for days. I was thoroughly annoyed that he forced himself upon me in the train and at the hotel, but he was company. And he has no right to sneak out without a word, depriving me of another opportunity to kick him out. Especially after all we have been through together.

Outrageous and completely thoughtless—typical of Roger.

A dark thought occurs to me: He’s gotten a superior room. A suite all to himself, leaving me with this rat- and roach-infected hovel. It would be just like him.

I stare around the room. It’s empty. I can’t boast to him about my day with the Jersey Lily and the invitation to go to Teo.

No question about it, Roger is a scoundrel, leaving me like this.

It’s tough being an independent woman and keeping up a brave front without a man when bloodthirsty things from centuries past have raised their ugly heads, so it was nice to have his company at a time when things that go bump in the night were bedeviling me.

I hate to admit it, but he really wasn’t that bad in many ways. For one, he has a sharp mind—a character trait that is on the top of my list of what I would like in a husband. I liked that he often won the battle of wits between us. It showed me he isn’t a wimp.

Then there was that kiss on the train. It was an accident—no more than a brush of lips. And even though there was no passion in it, and I may have been stirred up a bit by it, it was meaningless.

So why am I acting this way?

Because it excited me at the time. My face got flushed, my heart beat rapidly—a natural and harmless reaction. Besides, he’s rather attractive in body. But I certainly wouldn’t have shared a train compartment or hotel room with him had he been someone I felt I could not trust or was repulsed by.

Angry for my feelings about him and realizing that he doesn’t share them, I pace back and forth from the door to the cot, hoping that I will meet him one more time so that I can give him a piece of my mind.

“Men! They are nothing but trouble.”

As I crunch up my hands in frustration, I feel Gertrude’s message get all squished up. In my ranting about Roger, I had forgotten all about it. I quickly open it and smooth it out to read.

Nellie dearest: So sorry to have ignored you. Been busy with Don Antonio’s clan. We are going tomorrow to Teotihuacán with Langtry and Gebhard. Would be lovely if you can join us. Do try.

Your friend,

Gertrude

Teo. Again.

Everybody wants me in Teo.

Is there some sort of cosmic force drawing me to Teo? I’ve gotten an invitation from everybody but La Bruja. But then again … maybe she’s the one stimulating all the invitations.

She is a witch, after all.

Maybe I could get her to use her powers on Roger.

45

Ah … the life of the rich and famous. I am so grateful to be floating on a cloud again, this time over the bumpy road to Teotihuacán. Left to my own limited resources, I would have been bouncing on hard seats in a grimy public coach.

El presidente
’s stagecoach is a Concord, a vehicle so comfortable that Mark Twain described it as a “cradle on wheels.” Rigged in a four-in-hand fashion so a single driver can handle the four big horses pulling it, the Concord also has a suspension system that consists of leather straps underneath, which cause the body of the coach to swing back and forth, far preferable to the jarring, up-and-down bouncing motion of the springs used in less superior rigs.

My description of this particular coach as a “cloud” is more accurate than Mr. Twain’s baby cradle, because the interior seats are nothing like the hard leather ones in the public conveyances we have back home, Concord or not.

As with the town carriage the president provided for Lily and her lover for city use, this stagecoach is heavily endowed with teak from the tropical jungles of the Far East and precious metals from the mines of Mexico.

A loaded wagon drawn by two mules trails behind us. It’s filled with travel trunks, many times bigger than my small carpetbag, and two large wardrobe trunks, which not only have room for hanging clothes but have drawers, as well. I’m sure my entire wardrobe back home would fit into just one of these mammoth wardrobes.

As I observed at the rail station the first time I saw Lily, a world-famous actress doesn’t travel light.

The trek to Teo, which is about thirty miles from Mexico City, is accessed on what we’d call back home a beaten path, rather than a road.

The coach holds six comfortably, and that is its manifest today. The seating is vis-à-vis, three of us on each side.

Across from me is Don Antonio, the Jersey Lily is to his right, and man-about-town Frederick Gebhard sits next to her.

I have the window seat, with Gertrude to my left. Mr. Thompson, the farm equipment salesman I met on the train, is beside her. He gives Gertrude and me a smile that makes me rethink my desire to make the trip to Teo. He started antagonizing me the moment I saw him this morning.

“So nice to see you again, Miss Bly,” Thompson said when had we gathered in front of the hotel to board. “Heard you’ve been getting too much sun and seeing more bloodsucking were-jaguars!”

He gave a good laugh and I gave him a smile, while I wished I could have kicked him in a most delicate area. I haven’t forgiven him for insinuating that what I observed on the train was the result of an overactive imagination and my delicate female constitution. His little joke at the hotel was rubbing salt in a still-raw wound.

I would have thought that a farm equipment salesman would be an odd bedfellow for a high government official to have invited to share the coach with the famous actress and her paramour, but it is soon apparent that the “farms” that Thompson sells to are those vast holdings called haciendas and that his work brings him into contact with the owners and their horseflesh because he sells tack. And as I catch bits and pieces of their conversation, it is obvious he was invited along to give Gebhard some tips on where to find the best horses.

Another surprise is the more familiar faces from the train—the cowboys and their foreman, Mr. Maddock. They are the security escort Lily alluded to. I thought she meant Mexican troops.

“I asked the ranch hands to come along to Teotihuacán,” Don Antonio says after we are under way. “The hacienda with the cattle they’ll be herding back to Texas is in the area, so I asked if they would accompany us. They will come in handy if bandidos decide to pay us a visit.”

The mounted cowboys form a double column far enough to the rear to keep from eating too much dust. They also have a heavy-duty wagon drawn by big workhorses, but it’s not even half full with their gear.

“Rightly considerate of you, Don Antonio,” Mr. Thompson says. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to these pretty ladies.” He pulls out a cigar to light but puts it away when Lily gives a smile and a “Please.”

Just before we got moving, Sundance came trotting by my window and gave me a big cocky grin and a wave of his hat.

“I see you have an admirer,” Lily teases me.

“I understand you also have a westerner for an admirer,” I reply.

I am referring to the notorious Judge Roy Bean, the Texas “hanging judge,” who hands out hard justice from his saloon in a small Texas town, coincidentally called Langtry, near the Pecos River. Bean is known to be an ardent admirer—a worshiper—of Lily, so much so that he named his roughneck saloon the Jersey Lily.

“So I’ve heard.” Lily gives her hearty yet so delicate laugh—I wonder how she does that. “I know nothing about the man except that he is said to administer justice in an ironfisted manner. I like the American West and have traveled from coast to coast on the rails. Someday, I will stop at Judge Bean’s saloon and pay him a visit.”
7

While the two men discuss the bloodline of Mexico’s horses, including the greatest prize of all, the bloodline of the horses of the conquest—descendants of the thirteen horses Cortés brought over from Spain—I mention to Lily and Gertrude that Mrs. Percy, my librarian, believes there are many similarities between the Aztec and Egyptian cultures.

“Unfortunately, books about Mexico are not on the purchase list for our little library,” I add, alibiing for my own ignorance.

“Well, in truth, there aren’t that many books that deal in depth with the Mexican civilizations anywhere. They’re hard to find,” Gertrude says. “And your librarian was right. Most Americans and Europeans fail to recognize the incredible accomplishments of Latin American and Asian cultures because their education is directed toward Europe and the Mediterranean.

“If they thought about it, they would realize that the Mesoamerican civilizations, like the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan, had accomplishments as great in science, medicine, language, and art as those of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Romans.”

“You are quite the history scholar,” Lily says. “And I must say it’s fascinating. Do tell us more.”

“Yes, Gertrude, please continue,” I say. The more I know about the history, the more chance I will have of deducing what the current crop of neo-Aztecs have up their sleeves.

“Many of the similarities between the Egyptians and the forebearers of the Aztecs and Mayans are obvious. Both built great civilizations dating back to before the time of Christ. They built pyramids, with the largest and third largest in the world being here in Mexico. They wrote in word pictures called hieroglyphics, developed complex cities with sewage systems, practiced medicine as a high science, and built roads linking large cities.

“There are many similarities with the Romans, too. As did the Romans, the Aztecs brought their drinking water down from distant mountains via aqueducts. And like the Romans, Aztec legions conquered a great empire and demanded tribute from the conquered.”

Gertrude rattles on about the accomplishments of the civilizations that had flourished for thousands of years south of the border. She is a storehouse of knowledge. I confess that I am not a “book learner,” as she obviously is. I tend to pick up my information from seeing and listening, which only works as long as I have someone like Gertrude or Mrs. Percy sharing the knowledge they’ve gained from the written word.

Gertrude stops to makes sure the men are engaged in their conversation before speaking to us in a confidential manner.