Mexican Gothic(28)

Julio looked up at Noemí, who was sitting next to him.

“What noise?” Noemí asked.

“I don’t want you here. I’m very tired,” Catalina said, and she gripped her hands together and placed them on her lap, closing her eyes, as if to shut her visitors away. “I really don’t know why you must be here bothering me when I should be sleeping!”

“If you will—” the doctor began.

“I can’t talk anymore, I’m exhausted,” Catalina said, her hands trembling as she attempted to clutch them together. “It’s really quite exhausting being ill and it’s even worse when people say you shouldn’t do anything. Isn’t that odd? Really…it’s…I’m tired. Tired!”

She paused, as if catching her breath. All of a sudden Catalina opened her eyes very wide and her face had a terrifying intensity to it. It was the visage of a woman possessed.

“There’re people in the walls,” Catalina said. “There’re people and there’re voices. I see them sometimes, the people in the walls.

They’re dead.”

She extended her hands, and Noemí gripped them, helplessly, trying to comfort her, as Catalina shook her head and let out a half sob. “It lives in the cemetery, in the cemetery, Noemí. You must look in the cemetery.”

Then just as suddenly Catalina stood up and went to the window, clutching a drape with her right hand and looking outside. Her face softened. It was as if a tornado had struck and spun away. Noemí didn’t know what to do, and the doctor appeared equally baffled.

“I’m sorry,” Catalina said evenly. “I don’t know what I say, I’m sorry.”

Catalina pressed her hands against her mouth again and began coughing. Florence and Mary, the oldest maid, walked in, carrying a tray with a teapot and a cup. Both of the women eyed Noemí and Dr.

Camarillo with disapproval.

“Will you be long?” Florence asked. “She’s supposed to be resting.”

“I was just leaving,” Dr. Camarillo said, collecting his hat and his notepad, clearly knowing himself an unwelcome intruder with these few words and Florence’s lofty tilt of the head. Florence always knew how to cut you down with the succinct efficiency of a telegram. “It was nice meeting you, Catalina.”

They stepped out of the room. For a couple of minutes neither one spoke, both weary and a little rattled.

“So, what’s your opinion?” she finally asked as they began walking down the stairs.

“On the matter of tuberculosis I would have to take an X-ray of her lungs to get a better idea of her condition, and I really am no expert in tuberculosis in the first place,” he said. “And on the other matter, I warned you, I’m not a psychiatrist. I shouldn’t be speculating—”

“Come on, out with it,” Noemí said in exasperation, “you must tell me something.”

They stopped at the foot of the stairs. Julio sighed. “I believe you are correct and she needs psychiatric attention. This behavior is not usual with any tuberculosis patient I’ve met. Perhaps you might find a specialist in Pachuca who could treat her? If you can’t make the trek to Mexico City.”

Noemí didn’t think they’d be making the trek anywhere. Maybe if she spoke to Howard and tried to explain her concerns? He was the head of the household, after all. But she didn’t like the old man, he rubbed her the wrong way, and Virgil might think she was trying to overreach. Florence certainly would be of no help to her, but what about Francis?

“I’m afraid I’ve left you with a worse conundrum than before, haven’t I?” Julio said.

“No,” Noemí lied. “No, I’m very thankful.”

She was dispirited and felt silly for having expected more of him.

He was no knight in shining armor nor a wizard who might revive her cousin with a magic potion. She ought to have known better.

He hesitated, seeking perhaps to provide her with more reassurance. “Well, you know where to find me if you need anything else,” he concluded. “Do seek me out if it’s necessary.”

Noemí nodded, watched him as he got into his car and drove away. She recalled, rather grimly, that certain fairy tales end in blood. In Cinderella, the sisters cut off their feet, and Sleeping Beauty’s stepmother was pushed into a barrel full of snakes. That particular illustration on the last page of one of the books Catalina used to read to them suddenly came back to her, in all its vivid colors. Green and yellow serpents, the tails poking out of a barrel as the stepmother was stuffed into it.

Noemí leaned against a tree, standing there with her arms crossed for a while. She walked back inside the house to find Virgil standing on the staircase, his hand on the banister.

“There was a man to see you.”

“It was the doctor from the public health clinic. You did say he could visit.”

“I’m not admonishing you,” he told her as he finished climbing down the stairs and stood in front of her. He appeared a little curious, and she guessed he wanted to know what the doctor had said, but she also guessed he would not ask yet, and Noemí didn’t want to blurt it all out either.

“Do you think you’d have time to show me the greenhouse now?”

she asked diplomatically.