Mexican Gothic(20)

“No. Well, yes. By marriage. Virgil Doyle is married to my cousin Catalina. I was hoping you’d go check on her.”

The young doctor looked confused. “But wouldn’t Dr. Cummins be taking care of her? He’s their doctor.”

“I’d like a second opinion, I suppose,” she said and explained how strange Catalina seemed and her suspicions that she might require psychiatric attention.

Dr. Camarillo listened patiently to her. When she was done, he twirled a pencil between his fingers.

“The thing is, I’m not sure I’d be welcome at High Place if I showed up there. The Doyles have always had their own physician.

They don’t mingle with the townsfolk,” he said. “When the mine was operational and they hired Mexican workers, they had them living at a camp up the mountain. Arthur Cummins senior also tended to them. There were several epidemics back when the mine was open, you know. Lots of miners died, and Cummins had his hands full, but he never requested local help. I don’t believe they think much of local physicians.”

“What sort of epidemic was it?”

He tapped his pencil’s eraser against his desk three times. “It wasn’t clear. A high fever, very tricky. People would say the oddest things, they’d rant and rave, they’d have convulsions, they’d attack each other. People would get sick, they’d die, then all would be well, and a few years later again the mystery illness would strike.”

“I’ve seen the English Cemetery,” Noemí said. “There are many graves.”

“That’s only the English people. You should see the local cemetery. They said that in the last epidemic, around the time the Revolution started, the Doyles didn’t even bother sending down the corpses for a proper burial. They tossed them in a pit.”

“That can’t be, can it?”

“Who knows.”

The phrase carried with it an implicit distaste. The doctor didn’t say, “Well, I believe it,” but it seemed there might be no reason why he shouldn’t.

“You must be from El Triunfo, then, to know all of this.”

“From near enough,” he said. “My family sold supplies to people at the Doyle mine, and when they shuttered it, they moved to Pachuca. I went to study in Mexico City, but now I’m back. I wanted to help the people here.”

“You should start by helping my cousin, then,” she said. “Will you come up to the house?”

Dr. Camarillo smiled but he shook his head, apologetic. “I told you, you’ll get me in trouble with Cummins and the Doyles.”

“What can they do to you? Aren’t you the town’s physician?”

“The health clinic is public, and the government pays for bandages, rubbing alcohol, and gauze. But El Triunfo is small, it’s needy. Most people are goat farmers. Back when the Spaniards controlled the mine, they could support themselves making tallow for the miners. Not now. There’s a church and a very nice priest here, and he collects alms for the poor.”

“And I bet the Doyles place money in his contribution box and the priest is your friend,” Noemí said.

“Cummins places the contributions in the box. The Doyles don’t bother with that. But it’s their money, all the same, everyone knows it.”

She didn’t think the Doyles had much money left; the mine had been closed for more than three decades. But their bank account must have a modest balance, and a little bit of cash might go a long way in an isolated town like El Triunfo.

What to do now? She thought it over, quickly, and decided to take advantage of those theater lessons her father had considered a waste of money.

“Then you won’t help me. You’re afraid of them! Oh, and here I am without a friend in the world,” she said, clutching her purse and standing up slowly, her lip quivering dramatically. Men always panicked when she did that, afraid she’d cry. Men were always so afraid of tears, of having a hysterical woman on their hands.

At once the doctor made a placating motion and spoke quickly. “I didn’t say that.”

“Then?” she pressed on, sounding hopeful, giving him the most fetching of smiles, the one she used when she wanted to get a policeman to let her go without a speeding ticket. “Doctor, it would mean the world to me if you helped.”

“Even if I go, I’m no psychologist.”

Noemí took out her handkerchief and clutched it, a little visual reminder that she could, at any moment, break into tears and start dabbing at her eyes. She sighed.

“I could head to Mexico City, but I don’t want to leave Catalina alone, especially if there’s no need for it. I may be wrong. You’d save me a long trip back and forth; the train doesn’t even run every day.

Will you do me this little favor? Will you come?”

Noemí looked at him, and he looked back at her with a dose of skepticism, but he nodded his head. “I’ll stop by Monday around noon.”

“Thanks,” she said, standing up quickly and shaking his hand, and then, remembering the fullness of her errand, she paused. “By the way, do you know a Marta Duval?”

“Are you going around talking to every specialist in town?”

“Why do you say that?”

“She’s the local healer.”

“Do you know where she lives? My cousin wanted a remedy from her.”