Mexican Gothic(40)
Noemí crossed her arms and looked down at the carpet.
He picked up the oil lamp. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do. Otherwise you’ll be liable to hurt your shins in the dark.
And it’s quite dark.”
He was, once again, correct. The few wall sconces with working bulbs gave off a dim light, but there were large pools of blackness in between them. The glow of Virgil’s lamp was an eerie green, but on the other hand she felt grateful for its more potent illumination. This house, she was sure, was haunted. She wasn’t one for believing in things that go bump in the night either, but right that second she firmly felt every spook and demon and evil thing might be crawling about the Earth, like in Catalina’s stories.
He was quiet as they walked, and even if the silence of the house was unpleasant, and the creaking of each board made her wince, it was better than having to talk to him. She simply could not converse at a time like this.
I’m a baby, she thought. Boy, would her brother laugh at her if he saw her. She could picture him, telling everyone Noemí now practically believed in el coco. The memory of her brother, her family, Mexico City, it was good. It warmed her better than the robe.
When they got to her room, she finally felt at ease. She was back.
All was well. She opened the door.
“If you want, you can keep this,” he said, pointing to the lamp.
“No. Then you’d be the one hitting your shins in the dark. Give me a minute,” she said, reaching for the top of the dresser, by the door, where she’d left the gaudy silver candelabra with the cherub.
She grabbed the box of matches and lit the candle.
“Let there be light. See? It’s fine.”
She began to take the robe off. Virgil stilled her, setting a hand on her shoulder and then carefully running his fingers down the edge of the wide lapel. “You look very fine in my clothes,” he said with that voice that was made of silk.
The comment was mildly inappropriate. In the daylight, with other people, it might have been a joke. At night, and the way he said it, it didn’t seem at all decent. And yet, though subtly wrong, she found herself unable to reply. Don’t be silly, she thought to say. Or even, I don’t want your clothes. But she didn’t say a thing, because it wasn’t really that bad of a comment, a few words, and she didn’t wish to start a fight in the middle of a dark hallway over what amounted to almost, but not quite, nothing.
“Well, good night, then,” he said, unhurriedly releasing the lapel and taking a step back.
He held the oil lamp at eye level and smiled at her. Virgil was an attractive man and the smile was a pleasant smile—almost teasing, in a good-humored way—but there was an edge to his expression that the smile could not mask. She did not like it. She was suddenly reminded of her dream, and she thought of the man in the bed holding his arms outstretched, and she thought there was a golden cast to his eyes, a glimmer of gold among the blue. She turned her head abruptly, blinking and staring at the floor.
“You won’t bid me good night?” he asked, sounding amused. “Nor grant me a thank-you? It would be rude not to.”
She turned toward him, looking at him in the eye. “Thanks,” she said.
“Better lock your door so you don’t end up wandering around the house again, Noemí.”
He adjusted the level of the oil lamp once more. His eyes were blue without a hint of gold when he gave her a final glance and stepped away, marching back down the hallway. Noemí watched the green glow float away with him, the sudden flash of color disappearing and plunging the house into darkness.
12
It’s funny how daylight could change her mind so utterly. At night, after her sleepwalking episode, Noemí had been scared, pulling the covers up to her chin. Contemplating the sky through her window, scratching her left wrist, she found the whole episode embarrassing and prosaic.
Her room, when viewed with the curtains wide open and the sun streaming in, was worn and sad, but couldn’t conceal ghosts or monsters. Hauntings and curses, bah! She dressed in a long-sleeved button-down blouse in pale cream and a navy skirt with a kickpleat, put on a pair of flats, and headed downstairs long before the predetermined hour. Bored, she once again walked around the library, pausing before a bookcase filled with botanical tomes. She imagined Francis must have obtained his knowledge of mushrooms this way, scavenging for wisdom among moth-eaten papers. She brushed a hand along the silver frames of the pictures in the hallways, feeling the whorls and swirls beneath her fingertips.
Eventually, Francis came downstairs.
He wasn’t very talkative that morning, so she limited herself to a couple of comments and fiddled with her cigarette, not quite willing to light it yet. She didn’t like smoking on an empty stomach.
He dropped her off by the church, which, she gathered, was where they’d dropped off Catalina each week when she went into town.
“I’ll pick you up at noon,” he said. “Will that be sufficient time?”
“Yes, thank you,” she told him. He nodded at her and drove away.
She made her way to the healer’s house. The woman who had been doing the washing the other day wasn’t out; her clothesline lay empty. The town remained quiet, still half asleep. Marta Duval, however, was awake, setting out tortillas to dry in the sun next to her doorway, no doubt to be used for preparing chilaquiles.