A Game for the Living

  “And then you raped her?”

  “I don’t remember. I think I must have just lost my mind while I was stabbing her, and I don’t remember anything after that. I don’t remember going home—and yet I was home.”

  “And then you went out and bought flowers?”

  “I don’t remember that either. Maybe I fainted. But I don’t think so, Teo. I only remember starting to stab her. And I don’t remember stopping.” Ramón looked at him with a dazed intensity, as if a demon had him in a trance and were working him like a puppet. “I remember cutting her nose off, Teo. Imagine!”

  Theodore felt for a cigarette, but he had none in his pockets.

  “Imagine thinking of that every night, Teo,” Ramón said into his hands. “Then you’ll know why I’m insane!”

  “You’re not insane, Ramón,” Theodore said automatically.

  Ramón looked up at him. “The only ones who believe me are the priests. The priests you used to call stupid.”

  “I never called them stupid,” Theodore said, though he probably had. Their organization kept them from being too stupid. And as a sense of sin constituted their firmest hold, they must have been quite pleased that one of their fold had presented himself to them with a ready-made sin and such a big one, enough to imprison and terrorize him for life. Then suddenly a shame of his bitterness and a desire to feel what Ramón was feeling erased his whole train of thought. “Everyone has committed sins, Ramón, crimes and sins. It’s only a matter of degree.”

  Ramón was shaking his head. “It’s not the same. It’s not the same if you don’t believe. You don’t believe in sin.”

  “Of course I believe that sin can exist. I don’t believe in Original Sin in the sense that you do. I think the story of the Fall is symbolic, a way of saying that with knowledge of the world comes corruption—a fall from grace. Well, we have to live in the world. I don’t believe Original Sin should be a mournful handicap all one’s life. Above all, I don’t believe a sense of sin makes one any better. On the contrary, it makes one worse.” Theodore spoke vehemently, but he did not think his words had penetrated Ramón’s brain at all. Ramón stared in front of him, and his body swayed very slightly from side to side.

  “I’ll never hurt another thing, Teo,” Ramón said quietly. “I’ll never kill anything, not the smallest thing.”

  “And I think your thoughts will change.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Theodore kept his hands in his pockets, because he could feel them trembling. “I mean I don’t think you will keep reliving that scene over and over.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Ramón said.

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’s Sauzas. I’ll let him in,” Theodore said, and went out of the room.

  Inocenza was hurrying down the stairs. Theodore told her he was expecting Sauzas.

  Theodore met Sauzas in the living-room and reminded him in a whisper not to mention the theft of his diary. Then they went upstairs to Theodore’s studio, and Theodore repeated his theory of how the robber had entered. He said that Inocenza had been next door at the Velasquezes’ all evening. Sauzas blew powder on the window-sill, then scrutinized it with a hand lens.

  After a moment, he stood up, pushed the window wider, and looked for prints on the outside of the sill. Then he smiled and raised his eyebrows. “A very tidy thief. Not a single fingerprint. It might have been scrubbed with soap and water!”

  They looked down at the ivy-covered bridge between the two houses. The ivy showed no sign of having been flattened or torn, but it was a sturdy, dark green ivy. The bridge was about sixteen inches wide, and on the street side a trough of dirt extended four more inches, and beyond that the outward-bending spikes, convenient grips for anyone creeping along the bridge.

  Sauzas went over the items stolen, and made Theodore look into his cupboards to see if any clothing was missing. None was, Theodore thought.

  “And nothing missing from your room, Inocenza?” Sauzas asked.

  “No, señor.”

  “You had your keys with you last evening?”

  “No, Señor, because I thought I would return with Don Teodoro.”

  “Where were your keys?”

  “Pinned in my handbag, señor. In my room.”

  “Are they there now?” Sauzas asked. “Did you look?”

  “No, señor, I did not look.” Inocenza blinked her eyes, then went up the stairs at a trot to her room.

  A moment later, they heard a cry and she came running down.

  “My keys are gone, señor!”

  Theodore and Sauzas climbed the stairs and went into her room. The keys had been unpinned from the lining of her handbag, and she showed them the perforations made by the safety pin to the right of the change purse. She never carried her keys in any other place.

  “Well, we’ll have the locks changed immediately,” Theodore said, feeling tired and defeated.

  “And a guard day and night,” Sauzas said. “The robber didn’t take much, but he covered the whole household, eh, señor? And again took the keys and left no fingerprints.”

  Theodore’s mind hung on the ‘again’. Presumably Lelia’s slayer had her keys, too. But her apartment had not been entered by anyone except the police and Josefina. They were keeping a watch on Lelia’s apartment.

  Sauzas called the policía from the telephone in Theodore’s room and ordered a guard. Then he said to Theodore: “We shall watch for your stolen property among the fences, señor.”

  “I’m not so much interested in the items as I am in who stole them,” Theodore said.

  “Of course. I, too.” Sauzas lighted a cigarette. “And your friend Ramón is not interested? Where is he?”

  “He is in his room. He was with me all last evening.” Theodore saw Sauzas smile a little and nod. “Señor Capitán, we would like to go to Guanajuato—tomorrow or the next day. For a stay of a few days. I can telephone you and tell you at what hotel we are staying.”

  “Guanajuato,” Sauzas said thoughtfully. “For any reason, señor?”

  “No. Just a change of scene.”

  “Yes. I suppose that is possible,” Sauzas said. “Does Inocenza stay here?”

  “I thought so,” said Theodore.

  Sauzas nodded. “We shall maintain the guard. And meanwhile, I shall stay here until the guard arrives. If you’ll permit me, señor, I’ll wait in your studio. I can see the street from there and know when he arrives.” He went into Theodore’s studio.

  Theodore consulted a telephone book and called a locksmith. They promised to send a man “after three o’clock”, which Theodore knew could mean tomorrow or the next day, but he did not call another locksmith.

  Inocenza prepared lunch, and Theodore invited Sauzas to have something with them, but he declined. The guard arrived just before Theodore and Ramón sat down. He was a plain-clothes man, Sauzas told him, and he would be across the street for the next eight hours until he was relieved by another man.

  “How are you, Ramón?” Sauzas asked.

  “Very well, thank you.”

  “Did you enjoy the party last night?”

  “It was very pleasant,” Ramón replied.

  “I shall keep you posted,” Sauzas said, and took his leave.

  The locksmith did come, and the locks were changed that afternoon. They decided to drive to Guanajuato the day after next, 7th March. Theodore paid a month’s rent on Ramón’s apartment. Inocenza was to remain at the house until Theodore sent for her, as it was his idea that they might take a house in Guanajuato or somewhere else after a few days in an hotel. Inocenza was to be in the house in the daytime, but she made an arrangement with Constancia to sleep in her room, because she was afraid to be alone in the house at night.

  The guards walked up and down the
block or stood across the street. Sometimes there were two guards, walking together for company.

  At about nine o’clock on the morning of the seventh, Inocenza came in from the patio, where she had been watering some flowers, with a brown-paper bag in her hand. “Look, señor! Your diary, is it not?”

  Theodore was in the living-room with the suitcases. The paper bag was open at the top. It was his diary. “Don’t tell Ramón,” he whispered to Inocenza, because the door of Ramón’s room was open. “Where did you find it?”

  “Between two bars of the gate. Who do you think put it there?”

  “I don’t know,” Theodore said. And so much for the guard, he thought.

  “Ramón?” Inocenza asked, her voice going shrill with sudden fear.

  “No, Inocenza. It was stolen the other night—along with the other things. But I did not tell Ramón. That’s all. And don’t mention it to him now. Do you understand? I shall simply report it to Capitán Sauzas.”

  Inocenza nodded, but she looked uncomprehending.

  Theodore waited until she had gone off about her business, then opened the diary eagerly. He could see no change in it, no pages torn or marked. Then, as he was about to close it, he noticed that the big photograph of Lelia was missing from the inside of the front cover. And he thought, too late, of possible fingerprints that his own fingers had now destroyed. When he closed the book, he saw a scratch three inches long in the green leather at one of the top corners, a scratch that might have been made by a rough stone, the point of a knife, the claw of a cat.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Theodore had been to Guanajuato three or four times, but for stays of only a day and a night. It was a special town to him, a special favorite. Other Mexican towns were as old, had abandoned silver-mines and aqueducts, but Guanajuato was artistically all of a piece, like a well-composed painting. When Theodore thought of Guanajuato, he imagined an aerial view of a town built on hills and sheltered by gigantic mountains, a town of exquisitely faded pinks and tans and yellows. Once he had done an imaginary painting of his aerial view, a smallish painting, because the town, though large enough and spread out, suggested smallness when one was in it, a size that one could grasp comfortably with the mind. The picture had hung in Lelia’s bedroom, and Theodore had no idea what had happened to it, or whether anybody would ever know it was his. He had not signed it, because a signature would have marred his composition.

  Guanajuato lay off the main highway and had only one good road of entry and exit, the turn-off from Silao that wriggled along the narrow Cañon de Marfil. From the bottom of the cañon the road would climb to a panorama of plains and mountains without a sign of human habitation, then drop again in the gorge that shut out the sunlight. Mountains on the horizon were blue with distance, and like other landscapes Theodore had seen in Mexico it seemed to say with a majestic voice: “Here I am—a million million times bigger and older than you. Look at me and stop fretting over your petty troubles!” It gave the melancholy solace that Theodore felt while looking at the stars on a clear dark night. He began to relax, as if a frown had been erased from his forehead.

  They passed a pair of Indian children who were leading a goat by its chin whiskers, and Theodore waved in response to their wave.

  There was a curve, and two children sprang directly into the path of the car. Theodore stamped on the brake and the cat’s carrier slid off the back seat on to the floor. Ramón’s forehead hit the dashboard.

  “Oranges, señor? They are good! A peso the box!” the little girl stuck the box all the way through the window.

  “You will get yourself killed that way,” Theodore said to her oblivious face. “The next car may not have such good brakes!” But already he was feeling for a peso, because she would hang on to the car if he didn’t, and she would go on running in front of cars, which was the only sure way of stopping them, until she was old enough to be married.

  The little girl dumped the oranges unceremoniously into his lap. “Gracias, señor. Another box?”

  “No, thank you, niña.” Theodore was trying to get away before her little brother could poke his lizard through the window, but he was not quick enough.

  “Iguana, señor! Five pesos! Make a fine belt!”

  “No—no, thank you,” Theodore said, leaning away from the horribly grinning face of the thing. He moved the car slowly.

  “Four pesos!” The boy held it by its fat throat and its tail and walked along beside the car. The iguana looked straight into Theodore’s eye, and, like something out of hell, it seemed to say: “Buy me and I’ll fix you!”

  “Three pesos!”

  “I can’t use an iguana!”

  “Two pesos!” The boy took the lizard out of the window, but continued to run along beside the car. “Make shoes! Make belt!” He was speaking in English. The iguana suddenly twisted itself violently, but the boy kept his grip.

  Theodore increased his speed.

  “One peso!—Ho-o-o-ombre!” came the fading, tragic cry.

  Theodore looked at Ramón. “Did you hurt your head, Ramón? I’m sorry.”

  “It was my nose,” Ramón said, smiling.

  GUANAJUATO CON RUIZ CORTINES!

  said white-painted letters on a great flange of rock at the road’s side. Another curve, a steep descent, and they were in the town suddenly, surrounded by pinkish buildings and houses and by boys of the streets who gripped the windows and would not let go.

  “Need a hotel, mister?”

  “Please don’t open the doors!” Theodore yelled at them. He had to go more slowly now, and the boys kept up with him.

  Theodore stopped at the lower plaza, and he and Ramón got out and locked the car. There were more boys, one a little tot of five or less who looked at Theodore with a threatening intensity as if he could hypnotize him into doing as he wished, and said:

  “You want hotel with hot runnin’ war-rter-r? Come with me and I show you! Hotel Santa Cecilia!”

  “Ah, it’s full up!” said an older boy in a cracking adolescent voice. “You gotta go to a pensión, mister!”

  “We don’t want a hotel,” Theodore said good-naturedly, because it was the only way to get rid of them. “We are not staying here.” He took Ramón by the arm.

  The boys followed them a little way, still shouting, and then gave it up. It was about five o’clock, and the sun touched only the tops of the houses. Theodore walked slowly, enjoying the sensation, which he knew would vanish in a few moments, that the people were play-acting, and that the whole scene had been created by one mind to produce a single effect. Every moving thing he saw seemed dramatic and purposeful. They came to the other plaza, on which stood the grand old Teatro Juarez, its façade a mess of polished, pale green stone pillars and nineteenth-century ornament. Familiarity had made even this attractive.

  “The Panteon is on a hill outside of town,” Ramón said.

  “Yes, I know.” The Panteon was the cemetery where the mummies were. “It’s late to go today, don’t you think? I thought we might go tomorrow.”

  “All right,” Ramón said agreeably.

  Theodore asked Ramón if he had a preference as to an hotel. Ramón said he usually went to a very modest one called La Palma.

  “It may not be comfortable enough for you, Teo.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Let’s try it if you like it.”

  They strolled back towards the plaza where the car was and where La Palma was, too. There was the smell of charcoal fires in the air, a hunger-stimulating fragrance of roasting corn and tortillas. The street lights had gone on. The evening was beginning.

  The doorway of Hotel La Palma was wide, and as they waited for someone to appear behind the bleak desk, a car rolled into the tiled lobby and passed them, on the way to the enclosed garage at the back of the hotel. Only one room was available, at eightee
n pesos. It was on the third floor, and there was an elevator, but it was temporarily out of order, the man told them. When Ramón hesitated, the man said brusquely:

  “Every other hotel in town is filled up. If you don’t believe me, just telephone and see.” He pointed to his telephone.

  “Very well, we’ll take it,” Theodore said.

  They carried their own suitcases up. The room was an empty box with a plain double bed that sagged, a straight chair, a flimsy table, a pair of coat hangers on a peg. There was not a picture on the wall, or a wastebasket or an ashtray. It amused Theodore.

  “Probably their worst room,” Ramón said apologetically.

  “I don’t mind it at all!”

  Theodore took Leo down to the plaza and let him out of his carrier. The cat was used to travelling and had explored scores of plazas in Mexico and South America. Invariably, Leo attracted attention, a few people asked what kind of cat he was and were astounded when the cat came at command, like a dog. Even policemen, approaching him perhaps with an idea of doing their duty, ended by stooping to pet Leo and to marvel at his size and his blue eyes. The army of street boys in Guanajuato were very talkative. Theodore answered their questions with good humor, but he had to rescue Leo finally from some boys who wanted to pick him up. And there was a face or two among the adolescents that looked rather delinquent. The boy who tried to steal Leo would regret it, Theodore thought.

  The water in the shower—there was no bath and not even a shower curtain—ran cool and was doubly unpleasant because Theodore was already chilled. He rubbed himself briskly with the undersized towel afterwards and said nothing about the water to Ramón. The single blanket on the bed was going to be inadequate, too, and Theodore made a mental note to get the steamer rug from the boot of his car.