Carlos Fuentes - Hydra Head

His head was whirling. He could not believe his burning eyes. He wasn’t blind. He wasn’t delirious. Several times he checked the date of the newspaper. The ceremony in the Palace was on the tenth of August. The newspaper was dated the twelfth. No mistake, but there wasn’t the least reference to the events of scarcely three days ago. There had been only two previous attempts, one against Ortiz Rubio, and the other against Ávila Camacho, and those had been known, and reported. It wasn’t possible. Licha was watching him with alarm. She walked toward the bed.

“Now don’t get excited. I told you, it’s not good for you. Don’t try to get up. Wouldn’t it be better if I read something to you? I’ll read you the police reports; that’s always the best part of the paper.”

Felix lay back, exhausted. Licha began to read in a monotonous, halting voice, with a tendency to give an exotic pronunciation to words she didn’t recognize, charging at punctuation like a bull at a red cape, and bucking like a young mare before the obstacle of a diphthong. Fastidiously, she read the accounts of a rape, a burglary in the San Rafael district, an armed robbery at the Masaryk Branch of the Banco de Comercio, and then the details of a particularly gruesome crime: this morning, at daylight, at the Suites de Génova, a woman had been found brutally murdered, her throat cut.

The preceding evening the victim had requested the concierge to wake her at 6 a.m. to catch an early flight. Because of the request, the concierge, uneasy that the victim did not respond to his repeated calls, let himself into the room using his master key, and found the naked body on the bed, throat slit from ear to ear. Suicide was ruled out inasmuch as no sharp instrument was found anywhere near the deceased, although the officers in charge of the investigation do not exclude the possibility that the weapon was removed following a suicide by a person or persons of unknown motivation, to suggest a perfidious crime. The coroner fixed the time of death as sometime between midnight and one o’clock yesterday morning. An additional fact that casts doubt on the possibility of suicide is that the deceased had carefully packed all her clothes and personal belongings, clearly indicating her intent to carry out her announced trip. All that was found in the room occupied by the deceased were a half-used tube of toothpaste, a new box of sanitary napkins, and the furnishings belonging to the hotel, a television, a stereo, and a collection of 45 rpm records which, according to the concierge, are also the property of the management. An inspection of the contents of the suitcases has thrown no new light on the circumstances of death. The only personal documents found in the flight bag were a folder of traveler’s checks, a round-trip air ticket — Tel Aviv-Mexico City-Tel Aviv, the Tel Aviv-Mexico City portion already used, the return flight for today confirmed via Eastern to New York, and via El Al from the City of Steel to Rome and Tel Aviv. The deceased’s passport stated her to be of Israeli nationality; born in Heidelberg, Germany. Name: Sara Klein — although in this regard the Israeli Embassy, in the person of a Second Secretary questioned at an early hour by our reporter, wished to make no comment, and refused to confirm the identity of the victim …

Licha read con cer gee, Em bas sy, New Yorr, as Felix thought to himself: Sara wasn’t at my funeral. She was already dead. Everybody’s been lying to me. But he showed no reaction, and suppressed his emotion as well. He told himself he shouldn’t squander his feelings, not now, not for some time to come. He must save his grief for a single instant. When? The time would come. Sara Klein deserved that much. His love for Sara Klein deserved that much. A single, final act should consecrate his emotions at having known her, lost her, and found her again for one night in the home of the Rossettis, before losing her forever.

Neither did he want to conjecture about the reasons for or the circumstances of the death of the Jewish girl he’d taken dancing one night in some nightclub in vogue at the time. Where had they gone? Yes, the Versalles, in the Hotel del Prado. They’d danced in celebration of Felix Maldonado’s twentieth birthday. The orchestra had played “Mack the Knife,” the ballad that Louis Armstrong’s recording had made popular again.

He asked Licha to help him escape from the hospital. She said it would be very difficult. She looked at him suspiciously, as if afraid that Felix already wanted to get rid of her. But she put the idea aside, and again said it would be difficult. “Besides, what about me? Ayub will never forgive me, and he scares me to death.”

“Don’t you think I’m capable of protecting you against that little shrimp?” asked Felix, kissing Licha’s cheek.

“Oh, yes,” she said, and stroked Felix’s hand.

“How can I get out of here, Lichita?”

“There’s no way, I swear. I tell you it’s a real exclusive place. They have guards at all the doors.”

“Where are my clothes?”

“They took them away.”

“Are there elevators?”

“Yes. Two. One holds three people, and there’s a bigger one for stretchers and wheelchairs.”

“Are they self-service?”

“No. They have some pretty tough guys running them.”

“Is there a dumbwaiter?”

“Yes. For all three floors. The kitchen’s on the ground floor.”

“Is there anyone in the kitchen at night?”

“No. After ten, the nurses fix anything that’s needed.”

“Can you get to the street from the kitchen?”

“No. The only way’s through the main entrance. No one comes in or out without being seen. You have to have a pass, and the guards keep a list of every time anyone goes in or out, the staff, the patients, the visitors, messengers, everyone.”

“Where are we?”

“On Tonalá, between Durango and Colima.”

“What kind of patients do they have here?”

“They’re mostly Turks. It’s practically reserved for them, since the clinic’s run by the Arabs.”

“No, I mean, what kind of sick people?”

“Lots of maternity cases on the second floor. The first floor’s for accident cases; up here, the serious cases, heart, cancer, everything…”

“Couldn’t you get me out if I was all bandaged up, and say I was someone else?”

“They know me. They know I’m only to take care of you, nobody else.”

“Doesn’t anyone die? Can’t I go out as a corpse?”

Licha laughed heartily. “You have to have a death certificate. You’re going way too fast. They’d take one look at your face and give you a pinch that’d revive you in a hurry! You must be kidding.”

“Then there’s only one way.”

“Whatever you say.”

“If I can’t escape from here like the Count of Monte Cristo, then we’ll have to make them believe that the Count of Monte Cristo’s no longer here.”

“I’m sorry, honey, but I don’t follow you.”

“Can you steal some trousers and some men’s shoes for me?”

“Well, I’ll see if I can find anyone asleep. I’ll try. What’s your plan, sweetie?”

“Since I can’t leave the building alone, Lichita, I’ll leave accompanied by everyone in the building, patients, nurses, and guards.”

“I guess I’m dumb, but I don’t get what you mean.”

“You just do what I tell you. Please.”

“You know how I feel about you. And besides, I wouldn’t mind shafting that rat Simon a little, especially now that I know what he did to you. Okay. You just tell me what I’m to do. But don’t be so sad, honey. I really meant what I told you, honest. If you want to stay with me afterwards, swell. If not, you haven’t lost anything.”