John Irving - Avenue of Mysteries

“The aunt with all the fish has died, Mister,” Pedro began.

“Yes, I heard,” Juan Diego told the boy.

“She broke her neck,” Consuelo said.

“Her neck !” Juan Diego exclaimed.

“How do you break your neck getting out of bed, Mister?” Pedro asked.

“No idea,” Juan Diego said.

“The lady who just appears has disappeared, Mister,” Consuelo told him.

“Yes, I heard,” Juan Diego said to the little girl with the pigtails.

The desk clerk saw Juan Diego coming; an eager-looking but anxious young man, he was already holding out the letter. “Mrs. Miriam left this for you, sir — she had to catch an early flight.”

“Mrs. Miriam,” Juan Diego repeated. Did no one know Miriam’s last name?

Clark French had followed him and the children to the registration desk. “Is Mrs. Miriam a frequent guest at the Encantador? Is there a Mr. Miriam?” Clark asked the desk clerk. (Juan Diego knew well the tone of moral disapproval in his former student’s voice; it was also a presence, a glowing heat, in Clark’s writing voice.)

“She has stayed with us before, but not frequently. There is a daughter, sir,” the desk clerk told Clark.

“Dorothy?” Juan Diego asked.

“Yes, that’s the daughter’s name, sir — Dorothy,” the desk clerk said; he handed Juan Diego the letter.

“You know the mother and the daughter?” Clark French asked his former teacher. (Clark’s tone of voice was now in moral high-alert mode.)

“I was closer to the daughter first, Clark, but I only just met both of them — on my flight from New York to Hong Kong,” Juan Diego explained. “They’re world travelers — that’s all I know about them. They—”

“They sound worldly, all right — at least Miriam seemed very worldly,” Clark abruptly said. (Juan Diego knew that worldly wasn’t such a good thing — not if you were, like Clark, a serious Catholic.)

“Aren’t you going to read the letter from the lady, Mister?” Consuelo asked. Remembering the contents of Dorothy’s “letter” had made Juan Diego pause before opening Miriam’s message in front of the children, but how could he not open it now? They were all waiting.

“Your woman friend may have noticed something — I mean about Auntie Carmen,” Clark French said. Clark managed to make a woman friend sound like a demon in female form. Wasn’t there a word for a female demon? (It sounded like something Sister Gloria would say.) A succubus —that was the word! Surely Clark French was familiar with the term. Succubi were female evil spirits, said to have sex with men who were asleep. It must come from Latin, Juan Diego was thinking, but his thoughts were interrupted by Pedro pulling on his arm.

“I’ve never seen anyone faster, Mister,” Pedro told Juan Diego. “I mean your lady friend.”

“At either appearing or disappearing, Mister,” Consuelo said, pulling on her pigtails.

Since they were so interested in Miriam, Juan Diego opened her letter. Until Manila, Miriam had written on the envelope. See fax from D., she’d also scrawled there — either hastily or impatiently, or both. Clark took the envelope from Juan Diego, reading aloud the “Until Manila” part.

“Sounds like a title,” Clark French said. “You’re seeing Miriam in Manila?” he asked Juan Diego.

“I guess so,” Juan Diego told him; he’d mastered Lupe’s shrug, which had been their mother’s insouciant shrug. It made Juan Diego a little proud to believe that Clark French thought his former teacher was worldly, to imagine that Clark might think Juan Diego was consorting with succubi!

“I suppose D. is the daughter. It looks like a long fax,” Clark carried on.

“D. is for Dorothy, Clark — yes, she’s the daughter,” Juan Diego said.

It was a long fax, and a little hard to follow. There was a water buffalo in the story, and stinging things; a series of mishaps had happened to children Dorothy had encountered in her travels, or so it seemed. Dorothy was inviting Juan Diego to join her at a resort called El Nido on Lagen Island — it was in another part of the Philippines, a place called Palawan. There were plane tickets in the envelope. Naturally, Clark had noticed the plane tickets. And Clark clearly knew and disapproved of El Nido. (A nido could be a nest, a den, a hole, a haunt.) Clark no doubt disapproved of D., too.

There was a sound of small wheels rolling across the lobby of the Encantador; the sound made the hair on the back of Juan Diego’s neck stand up — before he looked and saw the gurney, he had known (somehow) that it was the stretcher from the ambulance. They were wheeling it to the service elevator. Pedro and Consuelo ran after the gurney. Clark and Juan Diego saw Clark’s wife, Dr. Josefa Quintana; she was coming down the stairs from the second-floor library and was with the medical examiner.

“As I told you, Clark, Auntie Carmen must have fallen awkwardly — her neck was broken,” Dr. Quintana told him.

“Maybe someone snapped her neck,” Clark French said; he looked at Juan Diego, as if seeking confirmation.

“They’re both novelists,” Josefa said to the medical examiner. “Big imaginations.”

“Your aunt fell hard, the floor is stone — her neck must have crumpled under her, when she fell,” the medical examiner explained to Clark.

“She also banged the top of her head,” Dr. Quintana told him.

“Or someone banged her, Josefa!” Clark French said.

“This hotel is—” Josefa started to say to Juan Diego. She stopped herself to watch the solemn children, Pedro and Consuelo, accompanying the gurney carrying Auntie Carmen’s body. One of the EMTs was wheeling the gurney through the lobby of the Encantador.

“This hotel is what ?” Juan Diego asked Clark’s wife.

“Enchanted,” Dr. Quintana told him.

“She means haunted, ” Clark French said.

“Casa Vargas,” was all Juan Diego said; that he’d just been dreaming about ghosts was not even a surprise. “Ni siquiera una sorpresa,” he said in Spanish. (“Not even a surprise.”)

“Juan Diego knew the daughter of his woman friend first — he only met them on the plane,” Clark was explaining to his wife. (The medical examiner had left them, following the gurney.) “I guess you don’t know them well, ” Clark said to his former teacher.

“Not at all well,” Juan Diego admitted. “I’ve slept with them both, but they’re mysteries to me,” he told Clark and Dr. Quintana.

“You’ve slept with a mother and her daughter,” Clark said, as if making sure. “Do you know what succubi are?” he then asked, but before Juan Diego could answer, Clark continued. “ Succuba means ‘paramour’; a succubus is a demon in female form—”

“Said to have sex with men in their sleep!” Juan Diego hurried to interject.

“From the Latin succubare, ‘to lie beneath,’ ” Clark carried on.

“Miriam and Dorothy are just mysteries to me,” Juan Diego told Clark and Dr. Quintana again.

“Mysteries,” Clark repeated; he kept saying it.

“Speaking of mysteries,” Juan Diego said, “did you hear that rooster crowing in the middle of the night — in total darkness?”

Dr. Quintana stopped her husband from repeating the mysteries word. No, they’d not heard the crazy rooster, whose crowing had been cut short — perhaps forever.

“Hi, Mister,” Consuelo said; she was back beside Juan Diego. “What are you going to do today?” she whispered to him. Before Juan Diego could answer her, Consuelo took his hand; he felt Pedro take hold of his other hand.