Mexican Gothic(58)

“But painting is the repeated exposure to a thing. It captures the essence of the object.”

“You’re poetic too.”

He looked embarrassed. “Let’s sit,” he said, taking the lantern from her hand and setting it down on the desk where he had already placed a few candles. Another oil lamp, very much like her own, larger, rested on his night table. The glass on it was tinted yellow, and it varnished the room in warm amber tones.

He pointed her to a large chair covered with an antimacassar showcasing a pattern of rose garlands and quickly shoved off a couple of books that he’d left there. He grabbed his desk chair, sitting before her and lacing his hands together, leaning forward a little.

“Do you get to see much of your family’s business?” he asked.

“When I was a kid I’d go to my father’s office and pretend to type reports and write memos. But I’m not so interested in that anymore.”

“You don’t want to be involved with it?”

“My brother loves it. But I don’t see why if my family has a paint company I should be in paint. Or worse: marry the heir of another paint company so we can have a larger company. Maybe I want to do something else. Maybe I have an amazing secret talent which must be exploited. You could be talking to a top-notch anthropologist here, you know.”

“Not a concert pianist, then.”

“Why not both?” she asked with a shrug.

“Of course.”

The chair was comfortable, and she liked his room. Noemí turned her head, looking at the watercolors of the mushrooms. “Are those yours too?”

“Yes. I did them a few years ago. They’re not very good.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“If you say so,” he replied, sounding dignified and smiling.

He had a plain face, mismatched even. She had liked Hugo Duarte because he was a pretty boy, and she appreciated a fellow with a certain slickness, who could dress well and play the game of charm. But she liked this man’s quirks and imperfections, the lack of playboy smarts coupled with a quiet intelligence.

Francis was wearing his corduroy jacket again, but in the privacy of his room he walked around barefoot and had donned a rumpled old shirt. There was something lovely and intimate when he looked like this.

Noemí was struck with the desire to lean forward and kiss him, a feeling like wishing to light a match, a burning, bright, and eager feeling. Yet she hesitated. It was easy to kiss someone when it didn’t matter; it was more difficult when it might be meaningful.

She didn’t want to make a further mess of things. She didn’t want to play with him.

“You haven’t come to compliment my drawings,” he said, as if he could sense her hesitation.

She hadn’t. Not at all. Noemí cleared her throat and shook her head. “Have you ever thought your home might be haunted?”

Francis gave her a weak smile. “That’s an odd thing to say.”

“I’m sure it is. But I have a good reason for asking. So, have you?”

There was silence. He slowly slid his hands into his pockets and looked down at the rug under their feet. He frowned.

“I won’t laugh at you if you tell me you’ve observed ghosts,”

Noemí added.

“There’re no such thing as ghosts.”

“But what if there were? Have you ever wondered about that? I don’t mean ghosts under bedsheets, dragging chains behind them. I read a book about Tibet once. It was written by this woman called Alexandra David-Neel, who said people there were able to create ghosts. They willed them into existence. What did she call them?

Tulpa.”

“That sounds like a tall tale.”

“Of course. But there is this professor at Duke University, J. B.

Rhine, who is studying parapsychology. Things like telepathy as a kind of extrasensory perception.”

“What are you saying, exactly?” he asked, a terrible caution lacing his words.

“I’m saying maybe my cousin is perfectly sane. Maybe there is a haunting in this house, but it can be explained logically. I don’t know quite how yet, maybe it’s got nothing to do with parapsychology, but take that old saying: mad as a hatter.”

“I don’t understand.”

“People said hatters were prone to going crazy, but it was the materials they worked with. They inhaled mercury vapors when they made felt hats. You still have to be careful with that stuff nowadays.

You can mix mercury into paints to control mildew, but under the right conditions the compounds give off sufficient mercury vapor to make people sick. You could have everyone in a room going mad and it’s the paint job.”

Francis stood up suddenly and gripped her hands. “Don’t speak another word,” Francis told her, his voice low. He spoke in Spanish.

They’d stuck to English since she’d arrived at the house; she didn’t recall him using one word of Spanish at High Place. She couldn’t remember him touching her either. If he had, it hadn’t been deliberate. But his hands were steady on her wrists now.

“Do you think I’m mad like those hatters?” she asked, also in Spanish.

“Dear God, no. I think you’re sane and clever. Much too clever, perhaps. Why won’t you listen to me? Really listen. Leave today.