“Did you love Mary a great deal?”
I understood as soon as I had formed the question that I had made a mistake. Miguel looked intensely at the tin of naphtha, at the dark liquid, the seaweed. Once again he was defending his mystery.
It was too late to retreat. I tried to ascertain what the boy knew of the deceased’s relationships, of Atuel and Emilia. My investigations in that direction got me nowhere. Likewise, his contribution to my knowledge of Esteban and Andrea was not particularly generous.
I lowered my eyes. Suddenly, I found myself staring at bloodstains on the floor. I moved two trunks slightly apart. A strangled cry rang out and I felt a sharp pain on my face—that boy’s fingernails must have been poisoned; I still bear the scars. I was alone. On the floor, between the two trunks, was an enormous white bird, bathed in blood.
12
I HARBORED SERIOUS MISGIVINGS. I LOOKED outside, through the window in the grand hall. The storm had taken a turn for the worse.
My plan was precise: take tea; visit Emilia before the police arrived; receive the police. Yet I feared that my cousin’s inexplicable delay in preparing, recipe in hand, some scones that aspired to equal Aunt Carlota’s justifiably famous ones, might perhaps signal the downfall of this most reasonable plan. I looked out of the window again. I felt reassured. Waves of black water lashed the glass; the sand encroached. Then, in the brightness of the lightning flashes, I glimpsed an infernal landscape, the ground roiling and breaking apart, whipped into wrathful whirlwinds and waterspouts.
The dinner bell rang at last. The typist struck it in time to a gentle swaying of her head. Everyone, with the exception of Emilia, gathered in the dining room, around the tea tray. While I savored a judiciously golden scone, I thought of how the cardinal events—births, farewells, conspiracies, graduations, weddings, deaths—bring us together around pressed linen and timeless china; I remembered also that, for the Persians, a beautiful landscape served to stimulate the appetite and, expanding this idea, I decided that for the perfect man, all of life’s vagaries should serve as stimuli.
In the deepest veins of thought, I heard the conversations around me merge with the buzzing of flies. It would not have surprised me—nor disturbed me—to hear the dry slap of the typist’s (our friend Muscarius’) swatter. Like one who reconstructs a jigsaw puzzle piece-by-piece, in putting those fragments of conversation together I discovered that there was, among us, a fearful cohort of people who, while masking their fear, secretly regretted having called the police, and who found hope in the wall of sand the storm was raising around the hotel.
I went downstairs to comfort Emilia.
I found her with her beautiful and placid face—the face of Dante’s Proserpina came to mind—resting on her hand, clutching a lilac-colored handkerchief; the same posture in which I had left her hours earlier. Our conversation was insubstantial, though she did declare that Doctor Cornejo had insisted upon spending a few minutes alone with the body. Emilia had not allowed it.
I returned to the grand hall. Cornejo, seated rigidly on a modern chair and equipped with eyeglasses, paper and pencil, was studying an enormous tome. Whenever I come across someone reading, my first impulse is to snatch the book from his hands. I offer, for the curious, an exploration of this impulse: could it be an attraction to books, or impatience at finding myself displaced from the center of attention? I resigned myself to asking him what he was reading.
“A book of non-fiction,” he replied. “A guide to locomotives. I carry in my mind a map of the country (limited to the railway lines, of course) in which I endeavor to include even the most insignificant of locations, with their respective distances and hours of departure …”
“You are interested in the fourth dimension, the space-time continuum,” I declared.
“The literature of evasion, I’d call it,” Manning observed, enigmatically.
Atuel was looking out the window. He called us over. Engulfed in a furious cyclone of sand, we saw the Rickenbacker. For the first time all day, I laughed. I confess: the absurdity of the scene unfolding with cinematic diligence was quite compelling. Out of the car emerged one, two, three, four, six people in all. They huddled against one of the car’s rear doors. Laboriously, they extracted a large, darkly colored object. I watched them—my eyes tearing with laughter—as they approached the hotel, tripping blindly in the sand, as though it were the dark of night, struggling and knocking about in the wind, their forms misshapen by the oblique effect of the windowpane. They were bringing the coffin.
13
WE GREETED COMMISSIONER RAIMUNDO Aubry and Doctor Cecilio Montes, the police physician, with a glass of bitters, cheese sandwiches, and olives. Meanwhile, Esteban, the chauffeur, two police officers and a man wearing a light-colored suit and a black armband—“the Master of Ceremonies,” as I was told—carried the coffin down to the basement.
Right away I began to regret the glass of bitters that I myself had served to Doctor Montes. I had not yet discovered that one more drink could never have much altered my young colleague’s state. The doctor was drunk; he had arrived drunk.
Cecilio Montes was a man of medium height and fragile build. He had dark wavy hair, large eyes, extremely pale skin, a finely boned face and a straight nose. He was dressed in a greenish cheviot hunting-suit, quite well cut, that, once upon a time, had been of high quality. His silk shirt was dirty. The hallmarks of his general aspect were slovenliness, neglect, ruin—a ruin that yet allowed glimpses of a former glory. I asked myself how this character, an escapee from a Russian novel, had appeared in our midst; I discovered unexpected analogies between the Argentine and Russian landscapes, and between the souls of our respective peoples: I imagined the young doctor arriving in Salinas, his faith in noble causes and in civilization, and his gradual deterioration, faced with the hardships and small-mindedness intrinsic to small town life. J’avais calé mon Oblomov. I regarded him with utmost sympathy.
For his part, however, he appeared to lack even that most minimal and rudimentary sympathy that, out of loneliness, indomitably draws together members of the same guild or profession. He scarcely answered my questions, and when he did answer them, his manner vacillated between indifference and aggression. I did manage to remind myself that Montes was drunk, and that, on earlier occasions, when that same spontaneous sympathy had impelled me toward my colleagues, I had been met only with souls withered by the superstitions of nineteenth-century scientific positivism.
Commissioner Aubry was a tall man, ruddy, with suntanned skin and an expression of perpetual astonishment in his light blue eyes. I wish to pause a moment on those eyes, because they were the man’s most distinctive feature. They were not excessively large, nor were they, as one might say, magnetic, sharp, or penetrating; but it must be said that the Commissioner’s entire life vibrated from within them, and that he listened and thought through them. One would scarcely have begun speaking to him and, immediately, the Commissioner’s eyes would fix upon his interlocutor with such intensity and expectation that the speaker’s ideas would become muddled and his words devolve into hopeless stammering.
“Have no doubt; this is a case of strychnine poisoning,” I affirmed gravely.
“We shall see, my esteemed colleague, we shall see,” said Montes. He turned his back to me and addressed the Commissioner.
“Make a note: a suspicious attempt to impose a diagnosis.”
“My dear sir,” I replied, involuntarily choosing a term of address as false as the situation. “Were you not inebriated, you would never permit yourself such fatuous words.”
“Some people do not need to be drunk to speak fatuously,” Montes replied.
I was readying myself to formulate a retort that would obliterate that dipsomaniac, when the Commissioner intervened.
“Gentlemen,” he said, seeking me out with those inexorable eyes. “Might you show us to the deceased’s room?”
With perfect composure, I led them downstairs. When we arrived at Mary’s doo
r, I opened it and stood aside so that the Commissioner could enter. Doctor Montes entered as well, brandishing his little cloth medicine kit. Perhaps due to the associations that medicine kit evoked, I murmured:
“Mary’s soul is no longer in need of a midwife.”
14
CONTRARY TO HIS MOST DEARLY HELD HOPES, Doctor Montes was forced to agree with my diagnosis. Mary had died from strychnine poisoning.
Calmly and authoritatively, the Commissioner ordered the police officers to follow him.
“With your permission,” he told us, “we shall move on to a search of each of your rooms.”
I approved the course of action. The Commissioner addressed me:
“We’ll begin with yours, Doctor. Unless anyone present cares to declare possession of strychnine.”
No one responded. Not even I. The Commissioner’s words had stunned me. I had never imagined that they would search my room.
“Do not involve me in this matter,” I said at last. “I am a doctor … I demand to be respected.”
“Forgive me,” replied the Commissioner. “Everyone must be measured by the same yardstick.”
He seemed to be suggesting that this “stick” was not merely metaphorical.
Reluctantly I led, or, more accurately, followed them to my room. My very own Mount Calvary awaited me, along with the satisfaction of confirming the perfect control I maintain over my nerves. Helpless, as if they had injected me with curare, I was obliged to stand tolerantly by as those rude hands defiled the interior of my suitcase and, even more stupefying, as, one by one, they opened the vials in my medicine kit, fragile and delicate as virgins.
“Be careful, gentlemen!” I exclaimed, unable to contain myself. “Those are extremely precise dosages. Don’t you understand? Any odor, any contact at all can negate the efficacy of those medications.”
I had achieved my goal. The men set upon my medicine kit with renewed ferocity. I slipped between the violators and the nightstand. With my right hand resting casually on the marble tabletop, I retrieved the vial of arsenic. I was prepared to suffer any indignity save the confiscation of those drops, the pillars of my health.
When the police at last finished their inspection of my medicine kit, I dropped the arsenic in among the other vials. I believed myself saved, but fate had reserved other trials for me. Sending a chill through my very soul, I heard the Commissioner declare:
“Next we’ll have a look at the pills.”
I decoded his ignorant words: he was referring to my drops. Naturally, I assumed he would inspect them right then and there. But Commissioner Aubry, with a lack of logic equaled only by his lack of courtesy, moved on to Cornejo’s room, leaving me free to take whatever precautions I deemed prudent.
15
I WON’T HESITATE TO MENTION THAT THE others’ rooms did not garner the same prolonged, minute examination that Commissioner Aubry had designated for the room of Doctor Humberto Huberman.
I did not stand idly by while the police entourage continued its inspection of the hotel. After putting my room back in order, I began my own investigation … I went out into the hallway. How surprised I was to discover that not a single officer was guarding the scene of the crime! I stationed myself in the shadows, in the very same spot from which Miguel had eavesdropped on the arguments between Emilia and Mary. Immediately, I remembered that I had surprised Miguel there and, with a sudden terror, realized that I, too, might be so surprised.
I was about to flee, when the sound of footsteps detained me. It was the typist. I was beginning to recognize, one by one, the elements of that hermetic hotel, of that limited world (as the prisoner recognizes the jailhouse rats and the patient the design of the hospital’s wallpaper or the molding on the ceiling). Brandishing her swatter, the huntress appeared in the dim light. She wheeled about dangerously, following the trajectory of the flies. Then she disappeared into the darkness of the corridors.
I waited a bit longer. It didn’t matter that the typist had surprised me; it would be best, however, for no one to discover that I had been hiding outside Mary’s room. I waited too long. Atuel came slowly down the stairs. He approached with a mixture of caution and determination that paralyzed me, and I had the sudden realization that a man I had, until that moment, regarded with indifference, had criminal potential. He entered Mary’s room. He pulled a suitcase from under the bed. He opened it and rummaged through it. Then he looked through the papers on the table. He appeared to be looking for something. His extraordinary composure seemed unnatural; I was put in mind of a talented actor who knows he has an audience, but disregards it … Pearls of cold sweat stood out on my forehead. Atuel set the papers aside; he took a red book from the nightstand (I recognized the book: it was a novel in English, with an emblem of superimposed masks and pistols on the cover); he put the book in his pocket; he walked to the door; he looked this way and that; he took several long, silent steps; he stopped again; I saw him ascend the stairs, taking them four at a time.
I left at last. If I stayed any longer, the police would discover me. I instructed my cousin to prepare me some white toast.
16
THE COMMISSIONER CALLED US TOGETHER in the dining room.
“Gentlemen,” he said, with stentorian gravity. “I hope that you are all prepared to testify. I will set myself up in the manager’s office and you will come to me, one by one, like sheep at a watering hole.”
“Don’t you have a sense of humor? Why aren’t you laughing?” Montes asked me.
I was about to issue a pointed response, but the smell of alcohol on his breath caused me to retreat.
The interrogations began. I was among the first to be called in. Although they didn’t pressure me, I told them all that I knew, not omitting a single detail that might help guide the investigation. Like a benevolent crime novelist, I restricted myself to dispensing appropriate emphasis. I was confident that, under my yoke, even Aubry’s modest intelligence would succeed in solving the mystery.
As I was leaving the office, I became aware that a crucial omission had tarnished my exposition. I tried to go back in, but they would not admit me. I would be forced to wait until all the other witnesses had offered up their longwinded babblings. Purgatory is never brief.
It would not, perhaps, be futile, to recount here one small detail—which Aubry shared with me in subsequent conversations—from Andrea’s testimony. It seems that the night before, my cousin, as was her habit, had placed a cup of hot chocolate on Mary’s bedside table. Now the cup was gone. Andrea admitted that she hadn’t noticed its absence at first, and offered, by means of an explanation, the delicate condition of her nerves.
The white toast I had ordered arrived at last. My spirit was revived.
When they summoned me, I did not jump up as one receiving an order, but rather rose, as one seeking recompense. As I entered the office I whispered the time-honored verse:
At last, a bird passed by.
Out of the mist he did fly.
With a wave of my hand, I greeted him
As though he were a good Christian.
I looked at the Commissioner in silence. Then, I announced dramatically:
“In a boy’s room, in the basement of this hotel, hidden among some trunks, there is a dead bird. An albatross. I found it this afternoon, with its chest torn open, its entrails gone.” I paused, then continued. “Just a few hours later, while Doctor Montes was examining the body of the dead girl, in the basement, a pair of solitary hands was embalming the albatross. What are we to make of these symmetrical events? The poison that kills the girl, in the bird, preserves the simulacrum of life.”
17
MY REVELATION BORE ITS FIRST FRUIT THAT very night. Effortlessly, with the silent naturalness of the necessary, I shifted from the group of suspects to the group of investigators. In fact, in a private parley, Commissioner Aubry, Doctor Montes and I lingered over coffee and sour cherries until the sun began to come up over the sand dunes.
My colleag
ue wanted to discuss women; the Commissioner elevated our spirits discussing books. He was a devotee of Count Kostia, tolerated Fabiola and disapproved of Ben-Hur, but his favorite book was The Man Who Laughs. His blue eyes regarded me with intense solemnity.
“Do you not find,” he asked me, “that the most important moment in literature is when Victor Hugo describes that English lord, an aficionado of cockfights, who dances at a club with two women on his arm? He offers a dowry to the single one and makes the other’s husband Chaplain.”
I was pleasantly taken aback by Aubry’s literary fervor, and uncomfortably perplexed by his question. By a generous twist of fate, the sentence that allowed me to evade giving an answer was also a useful piece of advice. I recommended that he read a few modern works: in particular, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, a novel pertinent to our circumstances and of which not a single copy was to be found in the hotel.
He listened to me eagerly, even reverently. It was as though his light-blue eyes were fixed upon my words. Perhaps they fixed them in his memory. My lips were still uttering the words “Thomas Mann,” when, laboriously, as one toiling “through the dark reaches of obscurity” in search of a few verses, he said:
“Hardquanonne says: ‘There exists an honesty in hell.’ ” Phrases such as these reveal the great listener; they set the true genius apart.
My entire life has been marked by such encounters with would-be friends: so long as they think in the abstract, we understand one another; they give a specific example, and incompatibility rears its head. With a warm burst of sympathy, the authenticity of which we need not examine, we continued speaking of literature until Doctor Montes interrupted his sullen silence in order to ask:
“What conclusions have been reached in the investigation?”
His eyes, arched and alert, fixed first on Aubry, then on me; his mouth, moving like a ruminant’s, savored a sour cherry. Already prepared to admonish myself for any lack of courtesy, I asked myself how far I had advanced in the man’s confidence. I did not possess unlimited faith in Aubry’s explanation of the mystery. Nevertheless, I was eager to learn what it might be.