In this place of soft rains and fog the color of lace, the days blended together. Sometimes he wondered whether it was Monday or Wednesday, whether he’d made love to his wife already or was about to be summoned to her bed.
Without Nepomuceno the house grew more quiet at suppertime, and Inés’s melancholy drenched the rooms.
Outside, the fog clung to his clothes when he went for walks, dampening them thoroughly, though no water droplets slid upon his skin. It was warm in the streets, warm in his room, like drifting into steam, his skin tingling while he explored the cobblestoned streets. Yet there were evenings when the temperature dropped, and the warmth gave way to a sickening chill that made him shiver like an old man.
He felt odd lately, like his reflection had ceased to match his face, like he was becoming someone else. This town made him ill at ease. The fog turned the buildings spectral at night; the humid atmosphere stimulated the mold that grew in corners of the rooms, multiplying it. The girl didn’t help matters much. He found her attractive and that was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. A splinter of lust that perturbed him.
He might have blamed it on the natural thrumming of the flesh, pent-up energy that required an outlet. For months he had been as well-behaved as a monk; his circumstances had not allowed for female company. Now that he was married, he did not lack erotic release. Perla was an exacting woman—her desires were paramount, his were second thoughts—but she had her charms. He’d certainly been forced to kiss less attractive ladies. Flesh was there for the taking, should he want it.
But what did he want? Inés, who was like a strong drink and clouded reason. No. That was incorrect. Money, he wanted money. Freedom, fast cars, and the allure of the metropolis. Not this sad town, nor anything from it.
The days were terribly quiet. He fanned himself with an old magazine and wondered exactly where he was headed.
—
“Do you know a man with a mustache who wears a green tie?” Inés asked him as she rudely shoved him awake.
He’d been having a nap, dreaming he was watching rumberas dancing at a tony nightclub, then suddenly found himself blinking and staring at the girl.
It was, for a second, a painfully erotic moment, his mind muddled with thoughts of sequined dancers, his ears ringing with loud laughter. And she was suddenly there, as if all his nebulous desires had coalesced into flesh, while at the same time she remained unapproachable and he yearned for the pleasant, yielding embrace of phantom women rather than her hard eyes.
“What man?” he grumbled. The day felt agonizingly hot, and theheat seemed to slip through the walls and the curtains and coil itself around one’s body, rendering a man senseless. If it rained that evening, it would feel even worse. It would feel like he was sitting in a sauna.
That was the trouble with this mountain town, it was moist and sticky and warm, and then all of a sudden the heavens opened and it rained buckets. It was fine if you grew orchids, he supposed, but he wasn’t a flower.
Inés huffed and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. “I told you, a fellow who wears a green tie. I was at the bakery and my friend said a stranger had been there, wanting to know if any men had moved to Puerco Ahogado in the past few months and asking if she knew a Mr. Linares or a Mr. Lagos. He sounded like a cop.”
Those words woke him up entirely. He shoved the bedsheets away and sat up.
“What did your friend tell him?”
“She said yes, Mr. Linares had moved to town recently and married Perla Inclán.”
“What else did she say?”
“That’s it. As soon as I heard that, I ran back here, figuring he was on his way to see you. Are you in trouble with the police?”
“Where’s your aunt?”
“At Sarita’s house, looking at magazines. Hey, are you in trouble—”
“No,” he said, and hurried to the washbasin, splashing water on his face.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not…they wouldn’t have gotten the cops involved.”
“Involved with what?”
He saw her approaching him in the mirror, arms crossed. He grabbed a towel and wiped his face. He felt like he was Scheherazade, not her, having to spin a story each night to keep his head.
“I tried to con a woman. The widow Aguirre. It didn’t work out. All I got out of it was a paltry amount of money. Her sons were furious, andthey said I’d pay for it, but they would have been too ashamed to go to the cops.”
“What’s a paltry amount of money? How much did you take?”
“Not enough, or I wouldn’t be here,” he said, and chuckled. “It was about their mother’s dear honor for them, not the money. She didn’t take it well when she learned the truth about me. Had a nervous breakdown. But I can’t be blamed for that!”
He wrung the towel between his hands, imagining the man in the green tie knocking at the door and asking Perla about her husband, then Ulises being forced to march into a room to answer pointed questions that would quickly establish he was a fraud.
