Almanac of the Dead

  DISGRACE AND RUIN

  HE HAD BEEN CAUGHT by Iliana before, and Menardo already knew her preferred tactic was to inflict great damage on the “other woman.” At first Menardo thought a young professional such as Alegría was beyond the reach of a sour matron in a provincial town such as Tuxtla Gutiérrez. But then he remembered Iliana’s uncle was acquainted with Mr. Portillo, and fear for Alegría swept over him. Surely the quality of her work and her high standing in her graduating class would insulate Alegría from Iliana’s hysterical allegations.

  Menardo had hoped to lure the general home with him, knowing that Iliana and her old maid aunt dare not attack him in front of General J. But the general was wound up like a mechanical toy, and one of the pilots had promised to explain the intricacies of jet fighters.

  Menardo thought Tacho might know something about Iliana’s terrible discovery. As they drove from the airport through the downtown district toward home, Menardo cleared his throat a number of times. Tacho glanced into the rearview mirror each time, to see if the boss had got up the nerve to ask. But each time Menardo backed down. It was unseemly to let servants know anything was amiss. Anyway, Iliana always told Menardo how she found out.

  “That is the worst thing!” Iliana sobbed. “The whole club knew! They were all delighted! I trusted that woman! Filthy pig dripping your slime while she talked oh so nicely to me! Well, they have gotten back at me now for all the jealousies they’ve had! I can never hold my head up again!” But this time Iliana’s crying did not affect him. He did not feel guilty or sad or remorseful. He was numb. Iliana had greeted him at the door with the news that Miss Martinez-Soto was no longer with the Portillo firm. The club would love Iliana all the more now that they had cut her down to size. No, this time Menardo felt nothing except perhaps the urge to drive a fist smack into the middle of Iliana’s puffy, damp face. The old maid aunt was upstairs napping or he might have. He was a man of his word. Alegría had become his responsibility. Fortunately, his Universal Insurance Corporation had a limitless future ahead of it.

  Alegría had been thinking about the mansion with its glass wall toward the jungle and the white marble staircase. She had taken a camera with her on the day of the confrontation, planning to photograph the complete construction so she might add the house to her portfolio and résumé. Now she was ruined. Bartolomeo would be delighted. He would make her work for the “people” now. Menardo had sent a cashier’s check and a spray of pale yellow orchids from the most expensive shop in Mexico City. The money was enough to cover her expenses. She thought she should take a vacation. But when she returned to the apartment, she could not bring herself to lift the phone book to the bed. She would follow the doctor’s orders. Call the travel agent to arrange a week in San Diego. She needed to go far away. She needed time to think. She lay down, but instead of sleeping her mind raced over the events again and again. Mexico did not need many architects, Bartolomeo was fond of saying, since the ruling class was so small and all the others were too poor to build “designer houses.” Her stomach clutched around the thought she had ruined herself. She had lost an inside position on the track to the top. She remembered as a child the horse races in Montevideo. A horse running far in the lead had inexplicably pulled up, allowing all the horses to run past. She had remembered it because it was one of the few times she had ever seen her father lose his poise. Her father had bet a large sum on the horse. He was no longer joking and talking.

  Alegría’s father always bragged she would go far. Alegría decided she would not tell her parents until she had definite plans. But she also could not delay too long, since either one of her parents might telephone the firm. Her father might forgive the accusations, but he would hate to get the news from strangers. She had to call her parents, but she could not raise herself from the unmade bed and reach down for the telephone. She thought a short nap might help.

  Iliana refused to speak to Menardo except to clarify logistical details concerning purchases and deliveries to the new house. Since the incident she had thrown herself into interior decoration. Menardo was relieved. It had occurred to him Iliana might insist the house be sold immediately. But Iliana had her own concerns. She had gone to great lengths to make sure that Miss Martinez-Soto would not find new employment in any of the prestigious architectural firms. This had been accomplished rather simply via the grand old family connections in Mexico City, and with the aid of the women at the club. Alegría after all, was Venezuelan, not a Mexican citizen. Iliana let the club members make strategic phone calls. If Miss Martinez-Soto attempted any legal action, Iliana and her allies made sure no law firm in Mexico City would take her case. Iliana had been afraid to stop or in any way relax her vengeance for fear she might slide into one of her depressions as she had after miscarriages. It was not possible to know for certain if Miss Martinez-Soto was ruined in Mexico, but Iliana had made every effort.

  The betrayal by Menardo and Alegría did not shake Iliana’s fascination with the structure she herself had designed. The design had been Iliana’s idea. Alegría had only drawn what Iliana had told her to draw. The grand entry hall had been Iliana’s idea. The new house excited much jealousy. To settle old scores, Iliana knew it would be necessary to furnish this house more lavishly than she had planned originally. Iliana sent Tacho to the big newsstand downtown for all the French and Italian magazines on interior design. The contractor had completed the pool and the landscaping. Iliana took out the buff tracing paper without flinching. She unrolled it on the big mahogany table in the dining room. Her reply to all of them was to appear at the weekly luncheon carrying the familiar cardboard tube. The wife of the former ambassador shook her head when she reported to her husband that night. “We thought she went on while that woman was designing the house. But today we had to listen for two hours about water lilies for the swimming pool! Finally I had to say, ‘Iliana, darling, we believe you. You are spending a fortune!’ ” The former ambassador only nodded. He knew all about Menardo’s business, especially now that Seguridad Universal was available throughout the entire region.

  THE FALL

  THEY HAD BEEN LIVING in the house for less than five weeks. The accident took everyone by surprise. The wives of the police chief and the judge had of course known about it immediately since their husbands’ offices were involved directly. There might not have been so much excitement had Iliana not been from a founding family. And of course there was the fact the new house was in the suburbs too close to the jungle where anything or anyone might emerge. Therefore, a full inquiry and a special investigation were ordered. The maids and the cook had been unpacking dishes in the downstairs pantry. The three women said they never heard Iliana cry out, although one of the maids said she thought she remembered hearing a faint sound. Of course outside, the crew finishing the pool area had been using a cement mixer with a loud gasoline engine. By the time Menardo reached his house, the driveway was full of police vehicles. The white Pontiac ambulance from the local mortuary was parked with its tailgate down. As he rushed through the front entrance, the drama of the grand entry hall immediately struck him. The wall of glass at the far end glowed with a luminous light filtered through the jungle leaves. The light was strange. Reflected off the high polish of the brilliant-white marble stairs, the light seemed more pervasive than the summer-afternoon sun at one o’clock. Menardo had been given no details. He only knew a terrible tragedy had occurred at his home. Now under the high vaulted ceiling, a crowd of plainclothes detectives, medics, and Dr. Gris were gathered at the foot of the marble staircase. Menardo saw they had covered Iliana with a blanket off her own bed, an expensive white cashmere shawl Iliana had preferred on winter evenings. The cook and two housemaids were huddled by the kitchen entrance. The cook was crying and wringing her hands, and the maids were trying to comfort her. Menardo took one look and knew the cook was not crying over Iliana. The cook was merely afraid. Because the cook had worked for them eight years, and police investigators knew the passage of time had a way of c
reating certain conflicts between the wealthy and their Indian servants.

  The police chief was conferring with his detectives, but sensed Menardo’s arrival by the sudden shift of the huddle near the corpse. The chief hurried across the wide hall. His big Luger in its black leather holster slapped against his fat hip. Menardo had seldom seen the police chief in uniform. He preferred civilian clothes, he said, for security reasons. Today he was in his full regalia. The black was set off by generous amounts of silver braid and silver medallions dangling from their pins on his thick chest. Iliana would have liked that, and she would have liked the effect of the big hall filled with police detectives speaking in low voices. The chief had worked himself into a good deal of emotion crossing the big hall. Like any husband, he had often daydreamed about somehow losing his wife so he could enjoy his middle years as a playboy and lover. But the sight of Iliana’s body sprawled at the bottom of the dazzling white staircase had caused the hair on the chief’s neck to stand up. For the moment, the woman architect seemed to have slipped the chief’s mind. Menardo had to look closely to see if the chief was serious or only pretending. But when Menardo realized the chief was sincere, the loss of Iliana struck him. Menardo could not think why exactly, because Iliana’s fury over his affair with Alegría had not abated as quickly as with past affairs. Menardo could not think what the loss was, but he knew it was connected with the shock the chief seemed to feel. Menardo felt as if he were onstage, and the audience was waiting for him to perform. But he could think of nothing. Fortunately, the chief and the detective took the cue. The chief strode over to the foot of the stairs. He walked up the stairs, and then as he turned dramatically, to face the group below, the chief lost his footing and slipped back flat on his ass. One of the uniformed men, a quick, thin man with dark skin and eyes, leaped forward to aid him, but the chief pushed his hand away. “She might have been pushed. Due to the location of the house, and the increase of, shall we say, ‘subversivism.’ ” Hearing this, the cook broke into sobs. “Everyone will be questioned.” The chief nodded in the direction of Tacho, who was staring at the body. Tacho stiffened and looked at Menardo. “My driver was with me at the time,” Menardo said.

  “You must understand everyone—those workmen—everyone will have to be questioned,” the chief said, trying to straighten a pin on the back of one of his medals. A detective took the chief aside. “Sir,” he said, “the marble steps—something is not right. The angle is rather acute. The steps were made too close together even for a woman’s step. The foot catches the edge of the step.” The other detectives nodded silently, behind their spokesman. “Unsafe design.” They might have said anything—that they thought he had killed his wife, that terrorists crawled out of the jungle and pushed her—anything. But for them to dare criticize the design of the cascading white marble staircase was more than Menardo could tolerate.

  “It could not have been the stairs! They are perfection! Look at them!” Menardo shouted.

  But the questioning of the cook, maids, Tacho, and all the men plastering the swimming pool revealed nothing. Menardo was interrogated by his friend the chief himself. The questions centered on Menardo’s business dealings and business connections. The chief wanted to know more about General J. and his consultant work with the Guatemalan government. Why exactly were the two of them buying airplanes from the United States? The chief had it from reliable sources two planes would be located, at least some of the time, in Guatemala. Naturally there were concerns about national security. “After all,” the chief said, “invasions by one nation upon another are not unknown. Such a move on the part of Guatemala is not unthinkable or impossible.” Menardo found the chief’s questions alarming. He realized that his recent business expansion had excited a good deal of jealousy and suspicion. “I have had so very many troubles come down on me now,” Menardo said in a weak voice. He was worried because Alegría did not answer his longdistance calls or letters. The chief’s fleshy lips broke into a wide smile. He put his arm around Menardo in a ritual of brotherhood. “My poor friend,” the chief said.

  Menardo had not been able to contact Alegría until the night after Iliana’s funeral. Alegría seemed not to understand anything he said to her on the phone. Alegría sounded drunk. She had just returned from Cancun and was exhausted from the traveling. Her flight had been late. Alegría could only echo Menardo’s words: “Accident,” “found dead,” “broken neck,” “buried today.” The shock of the news of Iliana’s death did not touch her, but instead thudded against the layer of numbness Alegría wore like a strange skin. At Cancun she had not been able to break free of the crushing waves of exhaustion and sleep. The sun flashed off the white sand and water as if the molten metals of the planet had never cooled, but had only coalesced into polished surfaces, mirrors upon mirrors. She had ordered meals in her bungalow, but found despite how ripe the fruits might appear or how fragrant the watercress or parsley, they had little flavor, as if they had been picked too soon, still green, and had been forced to ripen. She knew the waiters and help at the resort were gossiping about her. She had registered under her parents’ home address in Caracas. She knew the resort staff expected a man to arrive shortly and join her. When no man had appeared and the young woman slept away the days, the resort staff had deduced the end of a love affair.

  Alegría had intended to call her parents after she had rested and thought things out. But the prospect of planning her next move caused her eyelids to feel heavy and evaporated all her strength. She had tried to fight this lethargy first with strong coffee and then with tiny white pills, but the effort had only left her nauseous. Alegría had felt time leaking away with the tides. Her father would telephone the firm asking for her. He might already know. She did not think she had the strength to hold the phone receiver. She was forced to let it all go, just like that.

  The funeral had been unpleasant. Iliana’s parents were old-fashioned and were horrified Menardo had sent the body to the mortuary, which they considered barbaric and a sin. They followed Church dogmas so old most of the priests had not heard of them. Her parents had always known Iliana’s marriage to Menardo would bring her to a bad end. Only an inferior creature would have chosen to build a new house in a jungle area exposed to so many dangers. Iliana’s parents didn’t care that the local inquiry and special investigative officers had ruled the death accidental. The coroner’s officer noted that while the marble staircase was by far one of the most stunning focal points of this most modern and beautiful mansion, still the stairs themselves had been made with a peculiar design. From discussions with the workmen, investigators determined the stairs had been cut and polished in an unusual manner. The officer did not know what the desired visual effect might have been, but the practical result was the close spacing of the stairs took no account of a person’s natural stride. The police investigator noted he had spent the morning at the death scene and had even asked a maid and a gardener to walk up and down the stairs. He himself had repeated the procedure over ten times. All of them, the report noted, had experienced some difficulty, and the maid had nearly fallen, because of the slippery surface; however an adult might negotiate the steps, the foot seemed to land on the edge of an adjacent step.

  It is the husband’s right to dictate all funeral arrangements. Menardo found himself relishing this last act as son-in-law and husband. Menardo had wanted to use the mortuary for many reasons. What he had argued with his inlaws was that after autopsy, only morticians had the skills to make the body once again presentable. But he also wanted to avoid the “old customs”—the open coffin in the main hall, a steady stream of visitors, mostly members of her clan, the very people who had opposed him and a few who had continued to snub him at weddings and baptisms. Iliana’s mother had fainted, but Menardo thought Iliana looked as good as could be expected after the fall. Bruises from the fall were covered under layers of powder. The only fault Menardo found had been with the eyebrows, which Iliana had always penciled with a thin line of reddish color. The
mortuary had given Iliana fat, black eyebrows.

  It was difficult for Menardo to remember he was a widower and officially in mourning. Of course he was sorry Iliana was dead; she had not been sick or old. She might have enjoyed many more years. But then, on the other hand, everyone had to die sometime. There were no children, and Iliana had never cared for her nieces or nephews. Her parents were elderly and in failing health, but they had all the others to fret at and complain to. She had gone suddenly and, the coroner had said, “painlessly.” Menardo wondered a little bit about that, but of course the first blow to the head or snapping of the neck or spinal column caused loss of all sensation. Menardo knew he was expected to make some show of grief for the benefit of Iliana’s family. But now that she was gone, he kept feeling a spitefulness that he was almost ashamed of. Iliana was gone and it mattered little whether he kept the in-laws anymore. As for his own family, none of them came. Menardo’s ties with them had nearly dissolved.

  Menardo took a last look at Iliana, and he did not see anyone he’d ever known. He tried to remember tender moments, those days in the courtship when he had actually anticipated the evening all the day before. Menardo had the feeling he kept changing; he had become different people until little of the original person remained. Menardo could feel he was headed toward the headlines and history. The dawn of the new age Menardo had so often cited to the provincial businessmen had suddenly burst forth into the heat of the day. The high noon was approaching.