Carlos Fuentes - Hydra Head

He studied that face. It did not mirror either sleep or the death that resided there. He saw something more. He was compelled to repeat the words that forced him to enter into the ritual that was no longer a spectacle to be observed but an act in which he must participate. He had realized at the home of the Rossettis that he would love Sara forever, whether she was near or far, pure or sullied. Now he must add: living or dead.

“Living or dead,” he murmured, and saw what it was in Sara’s face that distinguished it from the mortal sleep of other women, living or dead. The motionless face of Sara Klein was the face of memory, a consuming memory unable even in death to find repose in forgetfulness.

Felix had come here to concentrate and to consecrate his love. He had come prepared to offer that love to the woman he had loved so deeply. Instead, it was she who offered him something, the light of a face washed clean of makeup, eyes forever closed, the mystery of a face that in life would have accepted death had it promised forgetfulness, but which in death seemed forever fixed in the rictus of painful memory.

Desolate, he covered Sara’s body. Stop remembering now, he entreated, forget your persecuted and orphaned childhood, your adult remorse, Sara. He heard steps. The candles in the Jewish candelabrum were burning low. Undoubtedly, the person responsible for attending Sara Klein’s body was coming to replace the candles. He turned, expecting a mortuary attendant. Instead, approaching him he saw a Mexican Bunny Licha, tense and somewhat hesitant. Even in his fury, he noted that she had taken the time to change into a black miniskirt and dark, low-cut blouse. She had exchanged her white rubber-soled shoes for abominations of black patent leather with monstrous platforms and clicking heels. A fake-patent-leather handbag was swinging from her arm.

“What are you doing here?” Felix asked in the hushed voice death imposes.

“I was hoping I’d find you here.”

“How did you know? How dare you?” Felix was devastated by the rupture of the unique moment and he detested Licha for profaning it. In addition, he was physically exhausted by the unconcluded transferral of Sara Klein’s memory to his own, a transferral interruptus that like unconsummated coitus wearies beyond words the bodies so sadly unfulfilled.

“I’m sorry, honey. I already told you I’m a big coward.”

“What are you talking about?” Felix asked impatiently, tearing his eyes from Sara Klein’s naked feet.

“I just couldn’t tell you before about poor Memo. I didn’t have the nerve.”

“Who the fuck is poor Memo?”

“My husband, honey, the driver, where I sent you. Better if he finds out for himself, I told myself. If he loves me, he’ll forgive me, and if he doesn’t, well, I already told you, what the hell…? I can tell you’re really mad at me.”

For an arrogant instant, Felix almost smiled. “You think that’s the reason…”

Licha struck the pose of a peevish little girl, pointing her toes together and grinding one heel on the marble floor. “Now don’t say anything. Listen to me. Memo’s a good man, he’s been more like a father to me than a husband. You don’t know, honey. On the street where I lived, nobody comes out a nurse. The only way you get out of there is as a hooker or a servant. Memito protected me and made me feel secure. He gave me the money to go to school, and if I don’t come home for several nights in a row, he says it’s because I’m taking care of patients. He never asks for any explanations. He’s satisfied knowing we’re married in the eyes of the law. That’s enough for him. And I know I owe him everything. You understand?”

“Fine, it doesn’t matter to me,” Felix said.

Licha tripped toward him on the tips of her toes. “Really? Then it’s on?”

Lovingly, she clasped her hands behind Felix’s neck. He pushed her from him and held her at arm’s length to look in her eyes. A look wasn’t enough. You had to phrase questions precisely for this girl, and pry the answers out of her with a shoehorn.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Sweetheart. I’ve never been with a man like you. You’re the only man I’d ever leave Memo for, in spite of everything I owe him.”

Felix had known painful memory in Sara’s forever-closed eyes. In Licha’s wide eyes, he saw smiling menace. He couldn’t laugh at her, or even be angry with her. He turned from her to Sara’s coffin. In some mysterious manner, these two women who could not possibly have had less in common in life were in this house of death finding some common ground, sharing, to some degree, this and other sorrows. Suddenly he saw each of them in a new light, as bearers of secrets, terrible sibyls.

“Who brought this woman here?” Felix decided to confront this new vision of Lichita. “Who put the notice in the newspaper about the death, the mortuary, and the cremation?”

“What if I told you it was the people at the Israeli Embassy, would you believe me?” Licha smiled.

“You’re asking me not to believe you.”

Licha winked a shoe-button eye. “Right you are. One thing you’re not, and that’s stupid.”

“The newspaper said that the Israeli Embassy claimed no knowledge of her. Who, then? Bernstein was wounded. Is he dead, too?” Felix asked of himself as much as Licha. “If they didn’t do it, then who?”

The nurse’s sly silence seemed eternal in the sputtering of the dying candles. Felix hesitated to precipitate what he most dreaded, Licha’s idiotic ideas, the conditions this woman he’d never wanted to see again wanted to impose on him.

“Sweetheart, I tell you there’s only one man in this world who could make me betray my Memo, who’s been so good to me.”

“Simon Ayub, I suppose?” Felix asked brutally.

Licha clung to his lapels. “You, darling, you, only you, only you, like the song says. I’ll give to you what you give to me, true love, darling, true love.”

“No,” said Maldonado, seizing the tail of an intuition that streaked like a comet through his mind. “I was asking you whether Simon Ayub had handled the arrangements.”

A vague wave of his hand included the coffin, the naked feet, and the fading Menorah, but ended beneath Licha’s blouse, caressing her breast, and his eyes signaled yes, everything was fine, anything she wanted.

“You think it was him?” Licha pulled away, wiggling triumphantly, but Felix sensed that for the first time she was surprised. She extracted a stick of gum from her shiny handbag and carefully unwrapped it. Felix grabbed her by the arm and squeezed hard.

“Ayyy! Don’t hurt me.”

“You know,” said Felix, in the voice of violent familiarity that in fact pleased Licha — he remembered she had no defenses against that line of attack. “You know,” he repeated, “all women are alike, you have to put up with them.”

“Not me, honey. I’ll make you love me,” the nurse squealed.

“You just put up with them,” said Felix, without releasing Licha’s arm. “Any woman, a special woman, it’s all the same. No escaping it. Even after you try to get rid of them, you have to put up with them.”

He picked up his suitcase and hurried from the mortuary chamber. Licha, the stick of gum folded in her mouth, unchewed, stood paralyzed for an instant, stunned by Felix’s changes of mood. Then she ran after him. She caught up with him at the stairway. She tugged at his sleeve to stop him, then ran ahead of him and stood in his way.

“Let me by, Licha.”

“All right, you win, don’t be mean to me any more,” she said, with a toss of her head. “Simon handled everything. You’re right. He brought her here. He said you’d follow her anywhere because she had you on a string…”