Gods of Jade and Shadow(40)

He drew nearer to her, the smile growing, becoming careless. Abruptly he remembered himself. The smile faded. She did not notice, too busy turning her head, looking down the avenue.

“I should find a hairdresser,” Casiopea told him as they crossed another street.

“Would you like me to accompany you?” he asked.

“I can manage,” she said, not wanting to seem a child who must be guided at every turn.

“Then I will see you back at the hotel,” he replied, handing her several bills.

She looked at the money. “Won’t it turn into a puff of smoke when you walk away?”

“Don’t worry. Loray gave me real money; I have not been casting illusions in order to obtain sufficient legal tender. Though he’ll have to wire more if we want to pay people in these delightful bills rather than sticks and stones. A nuisance. Were I in Xibalba, I’d simply command my servants to bring me the jewels and treasures of the earth. Were I in Xibalba I’d show you truly fine jewelry to wear, necklaces of silver moths and the blackest pearls you’ve ever seen, darker than the darkest ink.”

“This bracelet is more than fine,” she said simply, running her fingers along its surface, for she did not want to begin wishing for impossibilities and great treasures.

She set off, then, first to find a post office. Casiopea had thought to write her mother a letter explaining herself, but she considered better of it. She decided a letter would be too problematic. She would not know where to begin or end her narrative. Instead, she opted for a pretty postcard. Casiopea kept her words brief, saying she was in Mexico City and was doing well, that she would write more later and send her address. She guessed that by now everyone in town thought she’d run off with a lover, and she did not bother to mention the presence of her companion. Besides, she could hardly say “and I am with a god at this time.”

After the post office Casiopea found a hairdresser who looked at her curiously, wondering if she’d tried to bob her hair by herself. Casiopea lied and said that had been the case.

“Yes, bobbed hair is all the rage,” the hairdresser told her. “My husband doesn’t like it much, but it makes for good business. You’re not from here, are you? Your accent…”

And so on and so forth, the hairdresser trailed on, making small talk. She informed Casiopea that the best place to go dancing, if she was looking for such fun, was the Salón Mexico, though it was important that she pay for the first-class section.

“You want to be in the ‘butter,’ not the ‘lard’ or the ‘tallow,’?” the hairdresser explained, because that’s what they nicknamed the sections. “The butter is where the decent men in suits and ties go to dance.”

The lard, the hairdresser told her, was where small-time employees, maids from fancy houses, and secretaries congregated. The tallow was the lowest of the low, and no decent lady should head there. It was full of whores, she was warned.

But when Casiopea looked in the mirror and saw her bangs and her short hair grazing her cheek, she thought she looked like the whores they’d warned her about. And yet her hair seemed quite nice. This might mean that the whores were not as bad as they’d said. Or maybe it meant something else entirely. Like most questions that had assaulted her during her journey, Casiopea had an impressive ability to mark them down as topics she should process later, but that she could not be bothered to consider at the time.

She exited the hairdresser’s shop and for a block or two, she walked very slowly, fearful that people would point at her, even ridicule her new hairstyle. But the pedestrians kept walking, the policemen directed traffic, the motorists banged their palm against the horn. Mexico City was too busy to notice a young, provincial girl with her black hair cut short. She gave a beggar a smile and asked a woman for directions, and neither person seemed shocked by her appearance.

Casiopea let out a sigh of relief, realizing no one was going to stop her because she looked different. Just as she was smiling, however, a heavy hand fell on her shoulder.

“Casiopea, we have to talk,” a voice said.

She knew that voice well. It was her cousin Martín.





Our Father, who art in heaven, he told himself, repeating the Lord’s prayer inside his head. But then he switched from prayer to curses, and back again. The curses were all destined for Casiopea.

He kept his eyes closed tight, fearing he might fall and dash his body against the ground, and the owl flapped its wings quickly. It was a gigantic creature, its talons large enough to lift a man in the air, and Martín kept thinking it would either throw him off his back or rend him with its beak and devour him whole.

The night wind toyed with the young man’s hair and he squeezed his eyes harder, he held tight to the feathers and the flesh of this supernatural creature. When the owl landed on the roof of a building, Martín could hardly contain his joy. He almost burst into tears.

“Your cousin will be at the Hotel Mancera,” the owl told him.

Or at least he thought it was the owl who had spoken, although it might have been Vucub-Kamé making himself heard through the animal, since the bird’s voice had a flintlike quality that made Martín bow his head, respect instinctive in the presence of the unnatural.

“You will tell the girl the Lord of Xibalba wishes to speak with her,” the owl said. “But do not scare her. It is best to make an ally than an enemy.”