The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini (28 page)

When I reached the ladder to the roof, I grabbed the rope which pulled the whole contraption down from the ceiling, then I paused. To my right was the door to Roberto Collura's room. Had I come to the third floor not to climb to the roof, but to see him instead? I imagined him thin and emaciated, having lain on that bed ever since Pacheco had moved to this house nine years earlier. I walked to his door and put my hand on the knob. The door was unlocked. With much trepidation, I pushed it open.

At first I thought Collura was asleep, he lay so still. But then of course he couldn't move; he was paralyzed. It was an odd sensation to know I had complete power over him. Most of the candles had been taken away but there was still one on the nightstand by his bed and another on the dresser against the wall. Avoiding the mobiles and other paraphernalia which hung from the ceiling, I walked to the bed and looked down. To my shock I saw that Collura was staring up at me. He had a face like a monkey, very thin and lined, and his eyes seemed gray or light blue, like the color of water. Covered only with a sheet, his body resembled a stick. For some reason, I remembered Pacheco's description of Collura riding on horseback, galloping across the fields. We looked into each other's eyes and I tried to imagine his thoughts.

“Can you speak?” I asked. Collura made no response. “Can you blink your eyes?” Collura didn't blink. “Can you hear me?” Still he did not respond, although I was certain he heard me. Indeed, his eyes followed me whenever I changed position. Perhaps he's crazy, I thought. Certainly, if I'd been paralyzed for twenty years, I'd be absolutely mad. I turned to look around the room—the pictures, toys, books, mobiles, mirrors all shimmered in the light of the two candles. The bird cages were covered. The fish hung stationary in their tank. The stuffed mongoose and cobra remained locked in their deathly embrace. I walked to the bookshelf. There were complete sets of Dumas, Hugo, Blasco Ibáñez, H. G. Wells. If he could be read to, then he wasn't deaf. I went to the dresser and opened the top drawer. There were t-shirts and hospital gowns. In the next drawer were towels, in the next were sheets. Even with my back to Roberto Collura, I knew he was watching me. I wondered if Señora Puccini had sex with him, if there was anything she could do to arouse him. I looked through a desk which was full of letters from friends in the south. I glanced at one which appeared to be from an old teacher. It was dated three years previously and began, “It was good to receive your letter.” The teacher suggested books that Collura might like—Turgenev, Jane Austen—and went on to say, “Yes, I agree about Lawrence, there is a supreme silliness to the emotional lives of his characters. You remember in
Women in Love
where what's-his-name holds his horse right at the track as the train roars by?”

I returned the letter to the desk and walked back to the bed. “Presumably you can talk,” I said. “Will you talk to me?”

I'm not sure what I wanted, but I think I desired to know more about Pacheco and Señora Puccini from another point of view. I stared down at Collura and he stared back at me. Occasionally he would blink but otherwise his face was expressionless. I found myself growing angry at him. In retrospect that seems foolish but I had so joined my own story to that of Pacheco's that Collura's silence seemed to deprive me willfully of knowledge about myself. To him of course I was an absolute stranger but he had seen me earlier with Pacheco, and presumably Señora Puccini had mentioned we were dinner guests and even old friends. But then if he thought I was a friend of Pacheco's, perhaps that was reason enough to be silent.

“Can you talk to me?” I asked. “Can you tell me about Pacheco? You think I'm his friend? Believe me, he ruined me as much as he ruined you.”

I was hardly responsible for myself. Despairing of the young man who Pacheco claimed was my son and still grieving for my wife, unbalanced by all the talk of the evening, the violence in the city, and the very turmoil of our lives, I seemed to act not by design but by impulse.

“Do you know about Pacheco and Antonia Puccini?” I asked. “Do you know they are lovers?” Collura continued to look at me. You have seen how monkeys can have a wise expression, or at least an expression that suggests wisdom? Collura's face suggested that. So, although he made no response, I knew he knew what I was talking about. He even seemed to pity me for being so upset and foolish. It made me angry with him.

“You know he fucks her all over the house?” I said. My voice had become high, almost squeaky. I couldn't control it. “He fucks her in the hallway, right outside your door. He fucks her and she loves it and wants him to do it again, while you are stuck here helpless and impotent. Doesn't that make you want to kill him?”

But then I caught myself. What was I saying, why was I torturing a helpless human being? His face was still blank and again I wondered if he could hear. But no, of course he could hear. I suddenly felt ashamed and backed away from the bed. Again his eyes followed me. Covering his feet at the bottom of the bed was a folded blanket. I lifted it. Collura's feet were white and bony yet looked very soft. White useless things. How had he gotten this way? Was it possible that his crash on the motorcycle had been an accident? I again covered his feet. I began to be afraid that Señora Puccini would enter the room and find me. How could I explain myself? When I entered, I had blown out my candle. Now I lit it again from the candle on the bedstand. My candle was red and about a foot long. As I paused to look down again at Roberto Collura, I saw that hot wax from my candle was dripping onto his arm. He blinked but made no other response. I jumped back, then tried to brush the wax away, but it was stuck fast to his skin. Frightened, I turned and left the room.

I hurried along the hall, thinking there must be another staircase, one leading to the back of the house. Everything was silent. I no longer had any desire to climb to the roof and had decided to go to the patio for my breath of fresh air. The back stairs were wooden and uncarpeted. My feet made a clattering noise as I ran down them.

The stairs brought me to a hallway on the far side of the patio from the dining room. I hurried along it to the kitchen, which was dark except for a single candle on the long oak table. My mouth felt parched, so I went to the sink and turned the tap. Then I froze in horror. Blood was gushing from the faucet. I stumbled back, raising my candle. Of course it wasn't blood but rust which, by candlelight, had confused me. In any case, I had no wish to drink it. Closing the tap, I went to the refrigerator, where I found a bottle of mineral water. When I had drunk my fill, I began to look around the kitchen, opening drawers, glancing into cupboards. After a moment, however, I heard the sound of sobbing coming from outside the door. Quietly, I crossed the kitchen to see who it could be. It was the cook's grandson. He was out on the patio hunched over in a chair next to the picnic table on which his dead grandmother lay surrounded by about twenty candles.

She wore a dark red dress that fell around her in thick folds and she looked quite beautiful. Her hands were joined across her chest. On her feet were a pair of silver slippers. Her round face was so smooth and unlined that she looked like a young girl taking a brief rest before leaving for a summer dance. I walked to the table and stood by her head. Her grandson glanced up at me, then went back to his sobbing, sitting with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands. Madame Letendre's long white hair had been fixed into a braid which was wound around the top of her head. Crowning it was a little wreath of white flowers. On her face was even a bit of makeup, rouge and powder, a little lipstick. Looking at her, I couldn't help but remember how Schwab had gorged himself as she had lain dying in the hall. Now Schwab was dead as well.

“Did you dress her?” I asked the boy.

“It was the Señora,” he said, the words squeezing between his sobs.

I realized of course that on such an evening as this I was only seeing one side of Señora Puccini. Yet looking at the flowers in the old woman's hair, seeing how carefully the dead woman had been made beautiful was like seeing a picture of another Señora Puccini. It showed her gentleness, her deep affection. Perhaps kindness was her most obvious quality, and how could we be expected to see it, or why should she show it to us, we who were Pacheco's guests and ostensible friends?

I stood by the old woman's shoulder. The candles surrounded her: three at the head and feet, six on each side. The candle nearest to me on my right was dripping wax on the red folds of her skirt and I reached forward to push the skirt out of the way. As I moved the red cloth, my hand touched something solid next to the old woman's thigh. At first I jerked back my hand, then I touched it again. I had no doubt what it was. Reaching under the cloth, I drew out the pistol I had seen in the hand of Señora Puccini. It would have been hard to mistake it, what with its polished chrome and pearl grips. It was a .32 caliber Llama and along the frame and slide was fancy scrollwork suggestive of foliage. I held the gun in my hand. It felt light and cool. Most likely the housekeeper had hidden it on the body of the cook after Captain Quatrone had told his men to search us for weapons. I assumed it was Pacheco's pistol, since only he would possess something that so combined the decorative and the useful.

As I stood by the cook's body, I heard a footstep on the tiles behind me. Turning, I saw Señora Puccini standing a few feet away. She looked at the pistol and I felt as if I had been caught stealing something.

“Wax was dripping onto her skirt,” I said rather clumsily. “I moved the skirt and found this.”

“I put it there,” said Señora Puccini. She stared at me without nervousness or curiosity. She was just my height and her eyes were flat and passive.

“I guessed as much,” I said. “I decided you thought the soldiers might find it.” Even as I spoke, I wondered why I was helping her form an answer. But she seemed indifferent to what I thought. She looked past me at the body of the cook. After a moment, I put the pistol on a small table.

“You know,” I said, “I've noticed the door slightly open as Pacheco's been describing his history with you and I realize you must have heard some of what he's been saying. Of course it's none of my business but I'm sorry for your life with him.”

She didn't answer but moved forward so she was standing by Madame Letendre's head. Very gently she straightened the wreath of flowers around the dead woman's brow. Again the idea of touching that dead flesh was abhorrent to me.

“Is what Pacheco is saying true?” I asked.

Somewhat impatiently Señora Puccini raised her head and stared at me with her dark eyes. I thought she was about to speak, but she remained silent.

“Presumably you don't object to his talking about it,” I said. “Why do you think he's telling us?”

What was especially disconcerting about her stare was that not only didn't she blink but she kept shifting her gaze back and forth from one of my eyes to the other.

“He wants to make you respond to him, doesn't he?” I asked. “That's his passion, isn't it? To make you react. And you choose not to. But what are your feelings? Do you like making love to him?”

Once more she honored me with her cold smile. Why did I feel she was patronizing me? I moved back so I stood by the cook's feet and we stared at each other over the dark red dress. The cook's grandson had gone into the kitchen and stood in the doorway observing us. Señora Puccini started to turn away and I stepped forward and touched her arm.

“Don't you want revenge?” I asked.

She wore a white apron over her black dress and as she turned to look at me she reached behind her with both hands to unfasten the cord. Removing the apron, she dropped it on the small table, covering the pistol.

“Ask him about his son,” she said.

“His son?”

“Ask him.”

She stood very straight and again I was struck not only by her beauty but by her ability to resist. “Tell me about Roberto Collura,” I said. “Can he speak?”

In retrospect, I wonder if I cared, but not only did I want to keep her talking, I was also seeking something that might soften the expression on her face. And I found it with my question, because her face changed and she seemed to grieve.

“I don't know,” she said. “He could until recently. He's very sick, not only in his body but also in his mind.”

“Does he know about you and Pacheco?”

But I was asking too much; she refused to answer. I also believed she could look directly into my heart and was repelled by what she found there. Yes, that is foolish, but I felt irritated with what I imagined to be her dismissal of me and it was that irritation which prompted my next question.

“One last thing,” I asked her, “why did you let the cook leave the house?”

She stepped back and her face grew cold again. I thought she might glance down at the cook, that I might see some guilty expression, but she kept her eyes on mine. Then she turned away, walked toward the back stairs, and I guessed she was going up to see Roberto Collura. It seemed so pathetic. I thought of the splashes of red wax on his arm and I knew she would realize they had come from my candle. Neither of us had glanced at or made any motion toward the pistol hidden by her apron. After she had disappeared, I recrossed the patio toward the great hall, feeling satisfied that she had at least granted me a few words. As I passed the bougainvillaea I saw the leaves quivering, quivering as if shaken by an invisible hand. Constantly in my mind was the image of Señora Puccini. I imagined ordering her to lie down on the floor as Pacheco must have done, telling her to remove her underwear. I imagined seeing her naked and desirous. Although part of me was horrified at this intrusion, this violation of another human being, another part wished I could make such a command myself, not to any woman but to this one. What had she meant about Pacheco's son? As I passed through the door into the hall, I thought of her lips. How full they were. One could almost feel their softness. How much Pacheco must want them and how fitting that he should be denied.