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Thin Man was pleased to
learn I'd succeeded finally in meeting Miguel Rostov. I was less
enthusiastic in a personal way, since being friendly with Rostov meant
attending the bullfight every other Sunday and, in between, spending a
lot of time in the company of matadores and aficionados. (His middle
name was after a famous Spanish bullfighter, now dead along with all
the hundreds and hundreds of bulls he'd killed, if that tells you
anything.)
Rostov had houses in
Mexico City, Juárez, San Diego, and Madrid, but only one wife--in
almost the farthest away of them, naturally. Everywhere else, I
gathered, he kept a Miranda or two waiting for him--or three, or four.
He was a very, very smooth character, but so charming with his
European manners that you almost didn't notice the smoothness, only
the charm. And the flattery, which he--unlike any other man I've ever
known--was able to offer as something completely natural, like the
compliment the breeze pays to the dancing wildflowers or the sparkling
surface of a brook. All together a very dangerous man, the
dangerousness compounded by his complete superficiality--the mental
and emotional thinness of an adolescent male interested only in sex,
guns, blood, alcohol, drugs, and lots of them. Fortunately, by the
time I met him he was jaded enough that a beautiful woman who resisted
all his enticements to bed struck him as titillatingly mysterious, a
stimulus to sexual excitement rather than frustration--at least for a
while, anyway. I'm committed to my work but even so there's certain
aspects of it I'd as soon leave to other people, whenever possible.
It's selfish of me, I suppose, but having spent most of my
forty-something years being kid sister to everyone, I don't really
feel the incentive to become anything else.
The Rostov residence at 44
Calle de la Esperanza in Juárez was in a wealthy neighborhood
surrounded by dark and restless barrios, like a castle rising above a
medieval town. A high wall, electrified at the top, enclosed the
property whose single access, except for the tradesman's entrance at
the back, was a steel gate operated by a uniformed guard in a
bulletproof guardhouse behind it. The house itself was a mansion in
white plaster and brick with French windows opening onto stone
terraces below and wrought-iron balconies above, flanked by wide lawns
shaded by palm and false orange trees, exotic flowers in well-tended
beds beside curving gravel paths, and at the back of the property a
garage big enough to house Rostov's Mercedes fleet. To be a rico in
Mexico is more like being a god than a human being. Benito eased the
car through the gate which oiled shut on a silver track behind it,
spoke briefly to the guard who stepped from his box to examine the
bullet holes in the passenger window, and drove between slow fans of
silver water waving over the grass to the wide steps before the front
entrance where Miguel Rostov, appearing suddenly in an ice-cream suit,
violet necktie, and dark glasses, took hold of the door handle himself
and handed me out of the car.
"Good evening, my dear,"
Rostov said. "I'm glad you weren't held up in traffic for too long
coming across the bridge."
"We weren't held up one
way or the other, as it happened," I told him.
He bent to put the end of
his little finger into one of the holes, looking grave.
"Miranda, I apologize for
the unpleasantness. This is a violent city, and a violent country. In
Mexico, such incidents will happen, I regret to say. I'm glad you were
prepared. Benito told me on the radio his first thought was you were
trying to shoot your way out of the car! That was before he saw one of
the attempting carjackers go down." He added, in a tone that showed a
bit too much curiousity for my taste, "Do you make a habit always of
carrying a weapon with you?"
"In America today, as in
Mexico, a single woman has to be prepared. My community work as a
nurse takes me into the most dangerous neighborhoods almost on a daily
basis. I signed up for a self-defense course years ago."
Rostov nodded
comprehendingly.
"Ordinarily you would be
taking a risk bringing a gun with you into Mexico, where, as you know,
all firearms are strictly prohibited--not in my car, of course." Very
casually, as if the incident was of no real importance to him, he took
in the perforations the bullet spray had made in the right rear
quarterpanel of the Mercedes.
"Nowadays common bandits
possess the arsenals of sovereign states." He sighed, shaking his
head. "It is the end of civilization as we know it, I fear. Well, we
ought to enjoy ourselves for as long as it does last. But come inside
now, Miranda, and have a cold drink. I have a roomful of people
waiting to meet you."
The bronze knocker
attached to the tall double doors was in the form of bull's head, not
that much smaller than life-size. As we approached, a houseboy with a
thin face and purplish-black hair, wearing a white jacket, black
pants, and a black clip-on bow tie, opened the righthand panel and
stood with his back against it as I went through, followed by Rostov.
The foyer of the house was floored with Saltillo tile beneath a
massive chandelier of polished copper. Heavy, dark Spanish armoires
stood against the plastered walls, a low antique table between them
supported a gold monstrance, chalice, and crucifix, while on either
side of the door a Tree of Life--those ceramic representations of the
Garden of Eden popular in Mexican folk art--rose six feet tall, alive
with birds, butterflies, and serpents painted in garish colors.
Noiselessly, the boy shut the door behind us as Rostov laid his hand
against the small of my back and propelled me gently forward toward a
door opening to the right.
"Jesús," he told the
houseboy, "vino blanco por la señorita, por favor." And to me, "I
assume you're having white wine as usual, my dear?"
"After the experience I
just went through? I'll take a glass of champagne instead, if you
don't mind."
Rostov smiled, and
increased the pressure of his hand slightly.
"Después, una botella de
champaña," he told Jesús, "y pronto."
Then, taking me
solicitously from behind by the shoulders, he walked me forward into
the room.
The walls were done in
scarlet laquer, with hooded chairs in the corners, deep leather sofas
facing one another across a glass-topped table, and zebra-skin rugs on
the floors. The coffee and end tables were decorated with taurian
statuary in various degrees of artistic representation, and the walls
hung with bullfight posters, atrociously painted and gilt-framed as if
they'd been Monets or Degases. The place looked like a brothel for
bullfighters, except for one thing: There were no women. Only me. From
various corners of the room, five men stared. Like a proud father at
his daughter's coming-out party, Rostov introduced them: Juan de
Hidalgo, a Spanish breeder of fighting bulls; Aristóteles Lopez,
nicknamed Puerco, who had the restaurant across the street from the
bull ring; Napoleón Cisneros, a local entrepreneur and owner of the
indoor market in downtown Juárez; Benedicto Baca, owner of the
bullring itself; and Alejandro de Aranjuez, a matador from Argentina
who spoke English as if he'd been raised at Buckingham Palace and
happened, incidentally, to be the handsomest man I ever met. They were
very polite and subdued in their greeting, gentle as if I might
shatter like glass at a raised voice or a firm handshake, eyeing me
appraisingly the way they would an expensive racehorse. Except for Aranjuez, who looked me in the eye instead of elsewhere when he took
my hand, in the way of a man who genuinely likes women, as opposed to
the other thing. Rostov gestured me onto the end of one of the leather
sofas and let himself down beside me as Jesús brought my champagne in
a Waterford flute on a silver tray and everyone else sat back in his
seat, looking satisfied. You could see they thought their host had
done very well for himself, over at Café Central in El Paso. I hadn't
done so badly, either.
This evening, the
conversation chez Rostov was almost exclusively about bullfighting.
I'd done my homework, having read Hemingway's Death in the
Afternoon and The Brave Bulls by Tom Lea, so I had no
problem holding my own as a self-proclaimed aficionada. Everyone
except Hidalgo, the bull breeder from Andalusia, was fluent, or nearly
so, in English, which was spoken almost exclusively in deference to
me, to Hidalgo's obvious discomfort. I felt sorry for him--a
nice-looking man, tall and thin, with a long, sad, butternut colored
face, like Don Quixote--without being able to do anything about it. As
far as Rostov and company were concerned, my Spanish was strictly
limited to "querencia," "estocada," and "Otra champaña, por favor." On
the few occasions when someone forgot and slipped into Spanish for
more than a sentence or two, somebody else remembered and politely
translated for me. No one thought to pay Hidalgo the same courtesy.
A dark woman in black,
wearing a white apron and crisp white maid's cap toward the back of
her head, announced that supper was about to be served. Rostov rose
with his guests and gave me his hand to help his Miranda off the
sofa--poor, weak thing that she is. I took it anyway and let him pull
me to my feet, noticing as he did so the slight telltale bulge under
the tailored ice-cream suit that could have been the identical S&W
AirLite I carried. He motioned his guests through the door of the red-lacqueur
room and hung with me behind their departing backs.
"Miranda, what do you
think?"
"They're very nice," I
said. "They know a lot about bullfighting."
"They admire you very
much, too."
"How could they admire me?
They hardly know me yet."
"These men have taste,
every one of them. They have a sixth sense for what is of value in a
rotten world. So if at supper the conversation turns to politics --a
vulgar subject--I hope you will be patient with them."
"I don't know about
vulgar," I said. "Boring, certainly."
"It's the wine," Rostov
explained. "Wine doesn't turn men's thoughts to love, but politics."
"Tell them to speak
Spanish, then," I told him. "That way, I won't be bored."
The meal was Spanish
rather than Mexican--and superb, of course. There was a green salad,
fresh yellowfin tuna and prawns from Guaymas, followed by grilled
chicken with saffron rice and clams and pimentoes mixed in, served
with a wonderful Pinot Grigio; for dessert an ice, and espresso with
chickory. The maids looked dark enough for Indians, but I guessed they
were actually Salvadorans: No one in Mexico wants to hire the
Tarahumaras. Rostov sat at the head of the table after placing me on
his right and inviting Aranjuez, the matador, to take the opposite
seat. The dinner conversation began in English to include me but the
subject, which was the latest American movies, seemed to interest no
one, and as the dishes were brought out and the chilled white wine
flowed, the talk, slipping into Spanish, turned more and more to
Mexican politics. Only Aranjuez, who was Argentinian, and Hidalgo,
whom the wine appeared to make sadder and sadder in spite of his
reacquired ability to understand the conversation, seemed
disinterested. Puerco Lopez, in the course of taking on enough tuna to
swamp a fishing boat, denounced the municipal government for graft in
awarding public health certificates to restaurant owners, while
Cisneros deplored the payoffs he was forced make to the Juárez police
department in order to keep the cops from looking the other way when
his convenience stores were robbed. Finally Aranjuez caught my eye
when Rostov, after begging my forgiveness profusely, left the table
for some minutes to take a phone call.
"You will be at the
bullfight Sunday week, Miranda?" Aranjuez asked.
"Of course, I'm going.
Miguel has promised to take me."
"I will be fighting that
afternoon. I expect you to bring me luck."
"I hope so. I've never
been famous for bringing men luck. That isn't a threat, it's a factual
statement."
Aranjuez smiled. He had a
smile to make most women claw their way out of their own clothes like
a kitten dressed up in a doll's outfit.
"Seeing you there with the
presidente will be luck enough."
I had to smile at him
then. Latin men really are not to be believed.
"You speak perfect
English," I said.
"There's no excuse for me
not to. My mother is English and I attended the Haberdasher School
outside London for four years."
Rostov returned to the
table right then and one of the maids poured champagne. When the
glasses were filled all around, he rose again from the table.
"To Miranda!" he proposed.
"La aficionada americana mas hermosa y encantador!--The most beautiful
American aficionada, charming patroness of the corrida!" he translated
for me.
Everyone applauded
enthusiastically the trophy mistress before drinking off the
champagne. They were all fairly drunk by now, including, even, Rostov.
Fortunately I can hold my liquor better than most men, without ever
seeming to try.
When the champagne was
gone the party moved into Rostov's ornate sitting room, like a
modernized version of the Escurial, for brandy and cigars (the men
politely asked my permission before lighting up). Rostov offered me a
cigar, too, and when I declined the maid brought a leather box lined
with rosewood and filled with slim, brown, unfiltered cigarettes. I
took one to please Rostov and he lit it for me. It tasted awful, like
burning potpourri, and I wished I'd accepted the cigar instead.
Now the talk was all
politics--about the mayor of Mexico City running against the incumbent
federal president in the primaries, corruption in the federal police
academy where common thieves enrolled themselves in order to learn how
to manipulate the law, and even to represent it--without anyone
thinking to translate for me. When Aranjuez and Hidalgo separated
themselves from the conversation I went over and joined them, being
careful to keep within earshot of what Rostov and his cronies were
saying.
"You're not interested in
Mexican politics, Miranda?" Aranjuez asked, teasingly.
"Not when it's discussed
in a language I don't understand."
"Politics is of no more
interest in English than Spanish, believe me. For myself, I pay no
attention to the political world." He translated what he had just said
for Hidalgo's benefit.
Hidalgo nodded. He took a
long pull on his cigar, and a draught of cognac after it. In elegant,
patrician Spanish he replied that Spanish politics was hopeless, and
had been for as long as Spain had existed as a nation. As a proud and
loyal Spaniard, Hidalgo said, he conceded this.
Right then was when I
heard the name Areola spoken, in what I thought was Puerco Lopez's
voice. I stubbed the awful cigarette in a Tiffany ashtray to listen
carefully. Hector Areola was the reform candidate running against the
incumbent Partido Revolucionario Institucional for the governership of
Chihuahua State, on a platform including what amounted to war against
the rival drug cartels seeking to control the state's political
establishment. Sipping crème de menthe, I nodded encouragingly at Aranjuez while concentrating on the conversation behind me.
Areola, Lopez was saying,
was a dirty pig, a killjoy puritan lacking a deeper understanding of
Spanish culture (murmurs of agreement, and Baca's--I thought it was
Baca's--"Yes, certainly"). For what he was proposing, Lopez declared,
Areola, that son of a whore, deserved to die: Even now, he asserted,
he was a marked man. Equating cocaine and heroin with the glories of
Spanish culture seemed like a bit of a stretch to me until Cisneros
spat the word "Portuguesa" and I realized the discussion had to do not
with the cartels but the bullfight. Areola, besides declaring war on
the drug traffickers, had announced he would seek to outlaw as well
fighting at the Spanish style, in which the bull is killed, and
replace it by the Portuguese one, in which the animal's life is
spared. Amazing I thought, while Aranjuez and Hidalgo continued to
discuss the futility of Hispanic politics: Everything these men have
worked for, everything they've acquired in life is endangered by this
one man, Areola, and yet for them he's important mainly as a threat to
their favorite sport. You have to remember that the male sex remains
stuck at the age of about sixteen.
Promptly at eleven, as if
at a signal, they got out of their chairs, told me goodnight, and
began moving toward the door, gulping their drinks and setting down
the empty glasses as they went, followed by Rostov. He was back after
several minutes with a fresh bottle of champagne which I refused,
saying I was tired.
"In that case, Benito will
drive you back to El Paso. Unless you'd prefer to stay over, of
course. The housekeeper has a guest room already made up."
I told him thanks but no
thanks--not exactly in those words--and said I looked forward to going
with him to the Cinco de Mayo fight, Sunday after next.
"Perhaps," he suggested,
"I'll have the pleasure of seeing Miranda before then?"
"Perhaps," I told him.
"Then again, perhaps not. I have a million and one things to do this
week."
His arm circled my waist
lightly as he walked me to the door where the Mercedes--this time a
black one, intact so far as I could see--was waiting.
"I trust the trip home
will be uneventful," Rostov said. "If not, I expect someone will pay
the price for his impudent presumption."
"They always do," I
assured him.
Rostov bent to kiss me as
I spoke and I turned my face aside to take his lips on my cheek, then
ducked quickly inside the car. He blew me a kiss through the raised
window and the last glimpse I had of him was from the end of the
driveway, a gleaming white figure against the paler shadow of the
house--a regular sitting duck, I thought. In this case, a standing
one. And all for me, a woman. It didn't end with Helen of Troy. |
