Evil Eye (6 page)

Mariana felt a pang of sympathy for the young woman.
It's because she is not beautiful. She is a homely girl—there is no place for her even in music.

But when Mariana tried to reestablish a sympathetic rapport with Hortensa, Hortensa coolly ignored her.

As if to say
Who are you? Somebody's wife? Nobody gives a damn about you.

Numbly Mariana rose from the table. She would clear the dishes away—she would bring in the dessert, an elegant crème brûlée prepared by a famous Berkeley caterer.

Austin sat at his place unmoving, as if Mariana were his servant.

In the kitchen, Ana took the dishes from Mariana quickly, to rinse at the sink. She would have come into the dining room with Mariana to help clear the table but Mariana told her no, please—“Austin prefers that you stay here.”

How sad she felt, how anxious, even before their guests' arrival her husband had seemed oblivious of her; not that he was angry at her in the way she so dreaded, but rather that he seemed to have forgotten her.
Yes—my wife. My new, young wife. Which one is she
. . .

Mariana didn't want to think that their marriage was so fragile, a husk of a marriage—entered into far too swiftly on both sides, as in a romantic Latin film. She didn't want to think that she was with this much older man only because the man loved her: claimed to adore her.

She was empty, scoured-out inside. Her life had collapsed with her parents' deaths, she had never fully recovered. She had no love in her for this husband, nor the hope of love.

She returned to the dining room. Candlelight fluttered against the three uplifted faces—of which one, missing an eye, was turned to her, with a sly smile of recognition.

As Mariana passed by Ines's chair the white-haired little woman seized her hand to tug her roughly down and whisper in her ear: “You are safe, Mariana!
He
will never know your secret.”

Mariana had sought, in her husband's filing cabinets and drawers, photographs of the predecessor-wives. But either Austin had not kept careful records of his domestic past or, deliberately, he'd bowdlerized these records after his divorces.

Yet in the oldest album Mariana had found what must have been a photograph of Ines Zambranco, crumpled and torn: a beautiful pale-blond young woman in oversized dark glasses, laughing as she exhaled a plume of smoke. She was wearing what appeared to be a silk shawl draped about her slender shoulders, fallen open to reveal the tops of her creamy-smooth breasts. Whoever had taken the picture—very likely Austin himself—had clearly adored this woman, leaning close to her, swaying above her.

On the back was scribbled in pencil
Amalfi—Oct. 1982.

The year before the death.

Deaths.

* * *

“Dear Mariana! It has been a deep pleasure to meet
you
.”

There was a subtle, sly emphasis upon
you.
So that Mariana was given to know, as Ines smiled coquettishly at her, that Ines had much more enjoyed being in Mariana's presence than in Austin's.

Was this sincere? Was anything about the one-eyed little woman sincere? Mariana had never met anyone for whom she felt such a visceral repugnance and dread; yet, perversely, a fascination. She could imagine Ines Zambranco's ruined face painted by a great artist—Picasso for instance. The demonic strangeness beneath the
faux
-female smile would exert an irresistible appeal.

“Though it has seemed—tonight—that we have met you ­before—both Hortensa and I agree—in this household. You—or someone very like you. In years past.”

Ines spoke lightly yet urgently. She was heedless of Mariana's look of offended surprise at her remark.

“We sense that you have had a great loss in your life—and that Austin has taken you up, as one of his ‘projects.' He is not comfortable with strong women—only women missing a part of their souls. Once I was the man's wife also, before I understood this. As others have been—to their destruction.”

Austin was in another part of the house. Mariana had accompanied their guests into the guest wing with the ostensible intention of checking, another time, the bathroom and its supply of large soft towels.

She'd known that it might be dangerous to be alone with
the first wife
—yet here she was.

Hortensa, too, had drawn away from them, taking refuge in her bedroom with the door closed behind her.

“I hope—I am not alarming you? There is much that must be told—swiftly. Before
he
intervenes—as always.”

Dinner had prevailed for too long—nearly two hours. A kind of anxious lassitude had settled over the table. Mariana had had an unaccustomed several glasses of red wine and was feeling dazed, a dull headache starting behind her eyes. Yet no one had made a move to rise from the table until at last Austin said, with an air of forced apology, “Well! Some of us have an early day tomorrow . . .”

The party broke up immediately. Hortensa had been yawning without troubling to cover her mouth. Ines was looking tired, though she continued to smile her bright effervescent smile like one who knows herself on camera.

Eager to escape to his study, Austin had said good night to his guests. In the large glass-walled room overlooking a view of the Bay he would check e-mail and cell phone calls until midnight or later.

Mariana wondered if Austin would expect her to join him there, to confer with him about their guests; how he thought the difficult evening had gone, and what plans had he made, if any, for the next morning. Ines would expect to speak with him in private—wasn't that the point of the visit? But Mariana sensed that she wouldn't be welcome in Austin's study just then. Her husband had had more than enough female companionship for the time being.

Ines was saying, conspiratorially: “I can feel the tension in this household, like the air before an electric storm.
It has always been here
. For Austin is not a sane man, essentially—you must know this by now. His madness, he can disguise as many men do, so the woman comes to doubt her own sanity.”

Ines was gripping Mariana by the wrist. The little woman's talon-fingers, covered in rings, closed about Mariana's wrist.

Mariana tried to pull away, weakly.

“I—I don't think. . . . I have to leave now. . . .”

“You're very young! And he has chosen you not for your looks —which is very fortunate, Mariana, let me tell you—for the man has made some foolish blunders in the past, drawn to beauty.”

Mariana stood as if hypnotized, unable to move. What was this terrible woman saying—that Mariana was
not beautifu
l
?

But she knew this, of course. Only she had not realized that others knew.

“Dear Mariana—you are a spiritual person, we can see. You are not ‘skin deep.' Don't be suffocated by the man. You seem breathless—short of breath—like other women Austin has possessed. And don't think of having children with him—as a way of being less lonely. He will woo them from you, or worse.”

“I—I have not thought of that. I . . .”

“When he kisses you, a man like that, you can taste the poison, yes? A little poison toad dwells within him. Next time you will notice, his saliva has a numbing effect—
anestésico.
”

Mariana was too shocked to wrench away from the woman. A frantic blush rose into her face, which was already warm from too much wine at dinner.

“It is essential not to allow this man to persuade you into performing certain—how d'you call it—‘love acts' with him. Though you are his wife, yet he does not approve, truly. For when he talks with his man friends they laugh together, they say crude, cruel things, no one is spared—despite wives, daughters—­mothers—none of us seem to matter to them, the company of men, the
dog pack,
when they are together. Also, Austin is a man of extreme convention, a ‘puritan,' and will not respect you.”

Mariana's face was burning now. For Ines's warning came too late—already she had acquiesced to certain requests of her husband's, couched in pleading/chiding terms.
Mariana I love you so. I adore you. It will not hurt you
. . .
it would mean so much to me.

“Hortensa, too, fell prey to him, when she was very young. At thirteen, my niece was not so plain-faced, and not so heavy. She accompanies me here each time to show him she has not been broken by
him
. He pretends not to remember, it is funny—yes?”

“I—I don't believe that, Ines. That is not—not likely. . . .”

“Why, because my niece is not beautiful now? When young, a girl does not have to be
beautiful
but only just
young
—ask your
perro
-husband.”

Ines tugged at Mariana's wrist so that she could murmur in Mariana's ear: “A baby with such a man is—a folly. So young, when we were married, he didn't want to be a father—though Austin wasn't so very young, he was at least thirty; and I was two years older. It's a crisis in the life of a man, when he becomes a father for the first time—he must cease being a child himself and this is wrenching for some men. I mean—it is truly a shock to them—‘narcissists.' Austin has told you, I hope—our little son Raoul died of ‘crib death'—a terrible surprise—‘sudden infant death syndrome' it is named. But no one knows what causes it. They say—sleeping on the stomach might be responsible, when the baby is very young. I did not place this baby on his stomach but on his back. Yet, when I returned, the baby was lying on his stomach, and he was not breathing. And Austin was in the house. This house. It is not the same house exactly now for he has renovated those rooms—the baby's room is vanished now. Always he would claim that he was out of the house but the fact is, Austin was in the house. He pretends not to remember, but I remember. And our
au pair
would remember—she'd hiked down into the town, because Austin was not prepared just then to drive down. You see—an infant so young could not turn himself over. An infant must be older than he was, to roll from his back onto his stomach. Yet our little Raoul was ‘sleeping' on his stomach. And he had stopped breathing. Though his little body was hot—burning with fever. His little face so
flushed.
I will never forget that heat.”

Ines brushed at her face with her fingertips. Her single eye leaked tears that shone on her thin, powdered cheek.

Now that Ines was stricken with emotion, that seemed heartrendingly genuine, Mariana was deeply moved, though uncertain what to do. She felt guilty, and ashamed, for having disliked this pathetic little woman since she'd first set eyes on her; still more unconscionably, she'd been jealous of her.

“Ines, I'm so very sorry. Austin had told me—something of this. But—”

“But not that he was in the house, and was the last person to see our baby son alive—I know he was.”

“I—I don't know about that. . . .”

“He expelled me from his bed—from his life—soon after. He caused me to flee back home—to my family—I had a collapse, and was hospitalized for eight months.
He
will tell the story, it was my film career I chose, over our baby. Yet in fact it was his own career—he did not want to be ‘encumbered'—not to take the child with him wherever he would go of course, but just to
think
of the child, and to
be
the father—it was too soon in his career.”

Ines was shuddering with sobs. Her white-powdered geisha face had begun to melt in streaked rivulets of tears and mascara. Her puckered purple-satin top looked ludicrous on the wasted female body. Mariana tried to comfort her, though without touching her—(almost, Mariana was frightened of touching Ines)—but finally, so moved by pity for the older woman, Mariana took Ines in her arms, and held her.

So frail! So small! Ines felt light as a mannequin, a mere husk.

But this was deceptive: Ines wasn't really frail. In a harsh whisper she told Mariana of the “wild, wonderful dream” she'd had for years—“Even before our young son was taken from me, long ago. How I would give the cruel husband a potion, to render his evil harmless; how I would make a mixture of my own pills—barbiturates, and tranquilizers—which I would give to him in some way he would not know. Even as a young man Austin was susceptible to sinus infections—he took antibiotics often. I would fill the prescription for him, for the antibiotics. But I would substitute for them my own powerful pills. How would he know the difference?—he would not know. He takes many antibiotics, as Americans do—sometimes the prescription would be for one every few hours, day following day for as long as twelve days. And when he fell asleep, from my pills, I would need only to press a pillow against his face—little Raoul may have died in such a way, a pillow pressed over his face.” Ines paused, breathing rapidly. She drew away from Mariana, just slightly: Mariana could see the tip of the woman's pink tongue, like a tiny serpent-tongue, between the smudged-ruby lips. “Then, I would remove all the pills of mine, that had been in Austin's possession, and flush them down the toilet. It would be believed that Austin had swallowed barbiturates deliberately, of his own volition. No one would know—he could not have known. The evidence would suggest he had been careless with medication, or had taken his own life. If there was an autopsy—who would know? And so many people close to him, he had injured, who would
care
?”

Mariana staggered from Ines, speechless. Was the woman joking? Could she be serious?

“I—I have to go now, Ines. I can't—can't talk to you any longer now. Good night!”

Mariana turned away but Ines clutched at her with thin, strong arms. The smell that wafted from her febrile little body was almost too much for Mariana.