Judson Carmichael - The Scared Stiff

“Oh, yeah,” I said, and roused myself. I sat up more straight in my chair, became businesslike. “By the weekend,” I said. “At least I hope so. It depends on a lot of things.”

“De nada,” Cousin Carlos said.

Arturo said, “I’ll phone you when.”

“De nada,” Cousin Carlos said, and the servant woman came out, looking faintly worried or aggravated or upset. She stood next to Cousin Carlos’s chair, bent forward as though she were in church, and muttered some things to him.

Cousin Carlos at first looked startled, then irritated, then fatalistic. He shrugged and grumbled something, and the servant woman bowed even more deeply and went away, rubbing her hands in a fretful manner, as though she’d been told to go get the doctor.

Cousin Carlos looked over at me. “You get to practice,” he said, and touched his finger to his lips.

Oh, good: a dress rehearsal, completely unexpected, and me half zonked from beer and sun and heat. But what the hell, I was going to have to do this eventually, so why not start now?

The plan was, I intended to stay at this house of Cousin Carlos for any length of time from one week to three, depending how things progressed in the outer world and how my mustache was coming along. During that time, I would have to pretend to be Guerreran, because I couldn’t exactly be hidden, in a small town like this, even behind Cousin Carlos’s fine privacy wall, and I certainly couldn’t present myself as the mysterious American. Which meant I had to be a Guerreran who, somehow, didn’t speak fluent Guerreran Spanish.

Okay. The story was that I was Ernesto Lopez (chosen because I could both pronounce it and remember it), an old friend of Cousin Carlos from his days in Ecuador, managing the Coca-Cola plant, and that now I was a deaf mute as an after-effect of syphilis. The syphilis was cured now and I was getting back on my feet and would only be staying with my old friend — compadre — Carlos until I got a job and my own place.

The syphilis part wasn’t my idea, it was Arturo’s. He said it gave the story believability, that anybody in Guerrera would understand a person might have some lingering problems after syphilis. I think the real reason for that detail was that Arturo is a smart aleck, but what was I going to do? Go along. I went along.

So now the story would be told for the first time, and we would all see how it flew. I felt suddenly very nervous, full of stage fright, and I didn’t want to turn around to look at the house when this visitor should come out, but there came a moment when Cousin Carlos and Arturo both stood up and turned around, so I did too.

My first thought was: I don’t want this woman to think I have syphilis. She was a beauty, probably in her mid-twenties, black-haired, chisel-cheeked, with a generous red mouth and large dark fiery eyes. Her body was hard and tightly curved, as though it had been constructed to contain electricity. She looked like Lola crossed with a panther, and I thought, Oh, my!

She came out of the house prancing, as though going onstage, which maybe is what she was doing. She fell all over Cousin Carlos with hugs and kisses, which he accepted with small nods and small smiles, patting her in safe spots. Then she suddenly discovered the presence of Arturo and fell all over him with hugs and kisses, and Arturo wrapped her in a bear hug, lifted her feet off the ground, and bit her neck until she squealed. Then he released her, grinning and whacking her on the behind, and she turned, disheveled, giddy, delighted, having the time of her life, to discover me.

She almost fell all over me too with hugs and kisses — I could see the automatic response gathering in her eyes and her mouth and her shoulder muscles — and then she realized she had no idea who I was.

And why should she? Even assuming she were somehow another relative, another cousin, who had been at our wedding, that was fourteen years ago. She would have been in her early teens, at most, and she was unlikely to remember much about the gringo groom from way back then. And even if she did have some memory of that former me, this present me, unshaven and shabbily dressed, would not serve as much of a reminder.

So she didn’t know who I was, but this woman was direct: she asked me. I could more or less make out the words, in her rattle-quick Guerreran, as she looked directly at me, and I was so disorganized and surprised that I almost spoke. I don’t know what I thought I was going to say, but I could feel the words welling up, and just in time I clamped my lips shut and gave Carlos a wide-eyed look, as though to say, Who is this, and what does she want?

Cousin Carlos took her near arm and started to explain. Arturo wrapped an arm over her shoulder, folded his hand against her side next to her breast, and did his own share of the explanation. Surprise crossed her very mobile face, and then pity for the poor deaf mute — I smiled bravely — and then — oh, yes, I could tell when Arturo, that bastard, got to the syphilis. You could see her knees press together.

After that, I was more or less left out of the conversation, which was what we’d wanted, wasn’t it? We all sat at the table, and more beer was brought out, including one for our new guest. We sat in an arc behind the table, so we could all see the river, with the woman at one end and me at the other, Arturo next to me. The three chatted, enjoying one another, she going on with a great deal of animation, and I sat and watched her. From time to time she’d catch my eye and toss a quick smile in my direction, like one flower petal out of a basket, and then she’d concentrate again on the other two.

We drank that beer, and then all at once Cousin Carlos heaved himself to his feet and made a pronouncement that seemed to me to be saying, one way or another, “The party’s over.”

The woman pouted prettily but then also got to her feet, and so did Arturo and I. Arturo gave her another bear hug and bite and gestured to me that we were leaving.

For the hell of it, I stuck out my hand to her. She hesitated, just the fraction of a second, then showed her own brave smile as she took my hand in her strong narrow fingers and gave it one strong shake. I smiled my gratitude, and as I turned to shake hands with Cousin Carlos (who had no trouble with the concept), I noticed the woman was now holding her right hand out from her side, and her smile was more fixed than before.

I smiled and nodded farewell to Cousin Carlos, who merely nodded at me, not being a man to waste his smiles. He and Arturo said a word or two, and then Arturo and I departed, taking again the path around the side of the house. As we left the lawn area, I looked back, and it seemed to me the woman was just turning toward the swimming pool. I knew what she was going to do: rinse that hand in chlorinated water.

I followed Arturo around the house and through the door in the wall and out to the grubby street again, full of the sounds of motorcycles. We walked along toward Cousin Carlos’s shop and the Impala, and I said, “I just wish it didn’t have to be syphilis.”

Arturo laughed. “She got to you, hermano. I knew she would!”

“What do you mean?” I felt a little bad-tempered in this noise and heat, what with being full of beer and not liking to be a syphilitic. “Who was she, anyway?”

“We talked about her in the car the other day,” Arturo said. “Lola and me. Remember Lola?”

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Arturo,” I said. “Who is she?”

“Luz,” he said. “Luz Garrigues.”

“Oh,” I said.

I remembered now. Luz. If it weren’t for this Luz, the Tobón family wouldn’t have any gossip worth mentioning.

We walked another dry noisy half a block, and I said, “You mean, she and Cousin Carlos...?”