The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (71)
She wasn’t doing better than her cousins. She’d tossed and turned all night listening to the sounds of the city. The noise of a television left on, cats fucking in some yard, the orchestra of insects. Her insomnia grew so bad she moved to the courtyard, and it wasn’t until she was gently swinging in the hammock that she finally fell asleep, the scattered images of half dreams.
As they piled into the minivan, Rhiannon said, “I talked to the moon again last night.” She scratched her forehead. Her rose had turned violet overnight.
Rey examined his rose. “How come I don’t get to be a human mood ring?”
Marimar grinned and said, “Because your only mood is dramatic.”
* * *
El Museo del Circo was located in the middle of the cerro Santa Ana, the colorful hill full of clusters of houses and shops, bars, art galleries, and bookstores. It took 444 steps to get to the very top where there was a lighthouse painted in the city’s signature pale blue and white, as well as a small chapel and 360-degree views of Guayaquil. The Montoyas and their crew stopped at around step two hundred, winded and out of breath. The “museum” itself was located in the back room of a comic book store, and was approximately the size of a studio apartment, but it only cost fifty cents to enter and the proprietor and curator was eagerly awaiting their arrival.
Ana Cruz knew Professor Kennedy Aguilar from when they studied at La Católica. Back then, they’d been young and fired up to change the world. Kennedy Aguilar, with his empowering speeches about social justice and civil rights; Ana Cruz, by changing the minds of students and fostering kindness from an early age. Of course, she’d done what she had wanted to do for a long time, before she had to dedicate the rest of her life to taking care of an ailing father who, on good days, remembered she wasn’t a servant, and a mother who had died with more regrets than aspirations. Kennedy had been off to a good start, publishing in semiradical papers. But after the murder of his best friend and journalist, Lisandro Vega, his spirit had diminished. His marriage had failed. He’d lost every strand of hair except his mustache. Instead, he dedicated his life to the research of forgotten things, particularly South American circuses. A passion he’d procured from his grandmother’s stories about her time with a spectacular to end all spectaculars.
Rey and Rhiannon walked around the room, studying the items on display. There were costumes on mannequins. Posters that still wafted with the scent of kettle corn and the sulfur left behind by pyrotechnics. There was a giant hoop, presumably one an elephant would have jumped through. The very unfortunate taxidermized head of a lion, an iron sledgehammer still coated in rust, or blood. Several flyers that didn’t advertise anything extraordinary, just people of different races. The Incredible Indian! The Marvelous Mulatto! The Astonishing Aztec! And those were some of the less racist ones. It made the nostalgia of it all turn bitter.
Rey tried to picture Orquídea smiling with a spotlight on her face in the middle of a European city with people trying to decipher what she was, as if she had been made of something other than bone and sinew and blood. Then again, how much different would it have been than if she had walked through the main street of Four Rivers, also with people trying to decipher what she was, where she had come from? How much different was it from Rey, standing at his gallery shows with people trying to decipher what he was, where he had come from?
“Mamá Orquídea talked to the moon, too,” Rhiannon said, and they assumed she was talking about the poster they’d spent most of the evening staring at.
Rey found himself wondering about how Orquídea could have belonged in the circus? Was Seal Boy really from the sea or just a man born with a medical condition? Was Wolf Girl truly a wolf or an impish girl with thick sideburns? How could a star be alive instead of just some clever pyrotechnics?
Rey felt a pang in his chest, and he felt a tug at the root of his rose. He glanced around the room, but they were the only ones around. He took a deep breath. It smelled like air conditioner, polished floors. He’d caught a whiff of cigarettes from one of the employees in the comic book shop’s main room, and only then realized he hadn’t had a smoke since they left Four Rivers. No wonder he’d wanted to puke his lungs out after ascending two hundred steps.
Kennedy, whom Ana Cruz called “profe,” was in the middle of regaling her with the long story of how he wound up procuring the lion head from a Russian circus that had blown up in Buenos Aires.
“Ana Cruz said you wanted to know about a particular circus,” Kennedy asked eagerly.
“The Londo?o Spectacular?” Marimar handed him the poster.
“You mean Spectacular Spectacular! I haven’t heard of this one in years,” he said, holding the unfurled advertisement open so it wouldn’t curl. “Pity the South American run of 1960 was cut short by the fire. Terrible. Terrible day. My father told me about it, but from the footage I saw, it was a sight, a real tragedy.”
“Footage?” Marimar asked, something like hope in the single word.
“Give me just one moment!” He ran off into an adjoining room.
“I haven’t seen him this happy in years,” Ana Cruz said.
Rey pointed a finger at Ana Cruz. “He’s not happy about us being here. I mean, maybe. But he’s definitely happy to see you.”
Rhiannon grinned from ear to ear. Her rose deepened into a mix of pinks and reds. “He definitely likes you.”