Сильвия Морено-Гарсия - Mexican Gothic

Two matching faded green velour settees were arranged at one end of the room, and next to them there were three chairs covered with antimacassars. White vases collected dust, indicating that this space had once been used to receive visitors and supply merriment.

Virgil opened the doors of a sideboard with silver hinges and a marble serving surface. He took out a decanter with a curious stopper shaped like a flower and filled two glasses, handing her one. Then he sat on one of the stately, stiff, gold brocade armchairs set by the fireplace. She followed suit.

Since this room was well illuminated, she was presented with a better picture of the man. They had met during Catalina’s wedding, but it had all been very quick and a year had passed. She had not been able to recall what he looked like. He was fair-haired, blue-eyed like his father, and his coolly sculpted face was burnished with imperiousness. His double-breasted lounge suit was sleek, charcoal gray with a herringbone pattern, very proper, though he’d eschewed a tie, and the top button of his shirt was undone as if he were trying to imitate a casualness it was impossible for him to possess.

She was not sure how she should address him. Boys her age were easy to flatter. But he was older than she was. She must be more serious, temper her natural flirtatiousness lest he think her silly. He had the stamp of authority here, but she also had authority. She was an envoy.

The Kublai Khan sent messengers across his realm who carried a stone with his seal, and whoever mistreated a messenger would be put to death. Catalina had told her this story, narrating fables and history for Noemí.

Let Virgil understand, then, that Noemí had an invisible stone in her pocket.

“It was good of you to come on such short notice,” Virgil said, though his tone was flat. Courtesy, but no warmth.

“I had to.”

“Did you really?”

“My father was concerned,” she said. There was her stone, even as his own badge was all around him, in this house and its things. Noemí was a Taboada, sent by Leocadio Taboada himself.

“As I tried to tell him, there is no need for alarm.”

“Catalina said she had tuberculosis. But I don’t think that quite explains her letter.”

“Did you see the letter? What did it say exactly?” he asked, leaning forward. His tone was still flat, but he looked alert.

“I did not consign it to memory. Enough that he asked me to visit you.”

“I see.”

He turned his glass between his hands, the fire making it glint and sparkle. He leaned back against the chair. He was handsome. Like a sculpture. His face, rather than skin and bone, might have been a death mask.

“Catalina was not well. She ran a very high fever. She sent that letter in the midst of her sickness.”

“Who is treating her?”

“Pardon me?” he replied.

“Someone must be treating her. Florence, is she your cousin?”

“Yes.”

“Well, your cousin Florence gives her medicine. There must be a doctor.”

He stood up and grabbed a fireplace poker, stirring the burning logs. A spark flew through the air and landed on a tile dirty with age, a crack running down its middle.

“There is a doctor. His name is Arthur Cummins. He has been our physician for many years. We completely trust Dr. Cummins.”

“Doesn’t he think her behavior has been unusual, even with tuberculosis?”

Virgil smirked. “Unusual. You have medical knowledge?”

“No. But my father did not send me here because he thought everything was as usual .”

“No, your father wrote about psychiatrists at the first possible opportunity. It’s the thing he writes about, over and over again,” Virgil said scornfully. It irritated her to hear him speaking in such a way about her father, as though he were terrible and unfair.

“I will speak to Catalina’s doctor,” Noemí replied, perhaps more forcefully than she should have, for at once he returned the poker to its stand with a quick and harsh movement of his arm.

“Demanding, are we?”

“I wouldn’t say demanding, exactly. Concerned, more like it,” she replied, taking care to smile, to show him this was really a small matter that might be easily resolved, and it must have worked, for he nodded.

“Arthur comes by every week. He’ll stop by Thursday to see Catalina and my father.”

“Your father is also ill?”

“My father is old. He has the aches that time bestows on all men. If you can wait until then, you may speak to Arthur.”

“I have no intention of leaving yet.”

“Tell me, how long do you expect to remain with us?”

“Not too long, I hope. Enough to figure out if Catalina needs me. I’m sure I could find lodging in town if I’m too much of a nuisance.”

“It’s a very small town. There’s no hotel, not even a guesthouse. No, you can remain here. I’m not trying to run you out. I wish you’d come for another reason, I suppose.”

She had not thought there would be a hotel, although she would have been glad to discover one. The house was dreary, and so was everyone in it. She could believe a woman could sicken quickly in a place like this.

She sipped her wine. It was the same dark vintage she’d had in the dining room, sweet and strong.

“Is your room satisfactory?” Virgil asked, his tone warming, turning a bit more cordial. She was, perhaps, not his enemy.

“It’s fine. Having no electricity is odd, but I don’t think anyone has died from a lack of light bulbs yet.”

“Catalina thinks the candlelight is romantic.”

Noemí supposed she would. It was the kind of thing she could imagine impressing her cousin: an old house atop a hill, with mist and moonlight, like an etching out of a Gothic novel. Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre , those were Catalina’s sort of books. Moors and spiderwebs. Castles too, and wicked stepmothers who force princesses to eat poisoned apples, dark fairies cursing maidens and wizards who turn handsome lords into beasts. Noemí preferred to jump from party to party on a weekend and drive a convertible.

So maybe, in the end, this house suited Catalina fine. Could it be it had been a bit of a fever? Noemí held her glass between her hands, running her thumb down its side.

“Let me pour you another glass,” Virgil said, playing the role of the attentive host.

It could grow on you, this drink. Already it had lulled her into a half sleep, and she blinked when he spoke. His hand brushed hers as he made a gesture to refill her glass, but she shook her head. She knew her limits, traced them firmly.

“No, thanks,” she said, setting the glass aside and rising from the chair, which had proven more comfortable than she might have guessed.

“I shall insist.”

She shook her head prettily, defusing the denial with that tried and proven trick. “Heavens, no. I will decline and wrap myself in a blanket and go to bed.”

His face was still remote, yet now seemed infused with more vitality as he surveyed her very carefully. There was a spark in his eye. He’d found an item of interest; one of her gestures or words struck him as novel. She thought it was her refusal that amused him. He was, likely, not used to being refused. But then, many men were the same.

“I can walk you to your room,” he offered, smooth and gallant.

They went up the stairs, him holding an oil lamp hand-painted with patterns of vines, which made the light emanating from it turn emerald and infused the walls with a strange hue: it painted the velvet curtains green. In one or other of her stories Catalina had told her the Kublai Khan executed his enemies by smothering them with velvet pillows so there would be no blood. She thought this house, with all its fabrics and rugs and tassels, could smother a whole army.