The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (47 page)

MENARDO HAD MADE AN APPOINTMENT with the most prestigious architectural firm in Mexico City. There, on three floors of a skyscraper, rows and rows of young engineers and architects toiled away, “designing the face of Mexico’s future,” as one of the senior partners of the firm told Menardo as they toured the premises. But when they reached the upper floor, where the offices of the senior partners and associates were located, the senior partner had led Menardo into a suite where a beautiful young woman sat working at a drafting table, her knees together and the high heels of her shoes hooked daintily on the rung of a high stool. When she turned and looked up at them, Menardo saw the lovely blue silk dress she wore was protected by a starched, white smock that gave her appearance a certain authority. She was, the senior partner told Menardo, their most prized young associate. Menardo did not remember crossing the pearl-gray carpet with the senior partner. All Menardo knew was that he was breathing the odor of many gardenias and carnations blooming together as Señorita Alegría Martinez-Soto took his thick, damp paw in her delicate, dry hand. Menardo glanced down to look at his hand in hers and saw that despite her work with pencils, rulers, and compasses, Señorita Martinez-Soto kept her fingernails long and perfectly enameled. Later Menardo had felt like a bumpkin because after the senior partner had left them alone together,
Menardo had been so flustered he had accidentally stumbled over the wastebasket next to Alegría’s desk. But instead of appearing disdainful or stiff, she had laughed at the wadded balls of paper scattered over the carpet. “Little paper rabbits,” Alegría had said, pointing and then smiling broadly at Menardo. He had fallen quickly to his knees to retrieve the crumpled paper, but again she laughed and waved a hand with the long, dazzling fingernails and told him the janitors were accustomed to finding far worse. She explained when she really got an idea in earnest and began to make headway with a design, she would lose all track of time; then pencils and pencil leads and wads of torn paper would fly all over her office. “Fortunately,” Alegría said, looking deep into Menardo’s eyes, “they aren’t paying me for being neat and clean or to keep this office orderly.” Just as Menardo thought he sensed a certain boldness on the part of the young woman, she indicated the chair across the desk from hers and invited him to sit down.

The first order of business, she told him, was to get a general idea of the client’s immediate needs. Menardo had been greatly relieved that Señorita Martinez-Soto was proceeding slowly and from the very beginning. For although Menardo had boldly ventured into many business arenas in previous years and had become a self-made “millionaire,” he was quite aware that many of the intricate customs and rituals of the upper classes were still unknown to him. He had never engaged an architect before. He had simply understood this was the practice when one wished to build the castle of one’s dreams. Menardo was aware of a feeling far stronger and more urgent than simple gratitude toward this young beauty who had spared him embarrassment or discomfort. She must be one of these “modern liberated women” who did not need to resort to bitchery to get what she wanted. While she talked on and on about the “options” and “alternatives,” Menardo’s eyes darted furtively over her body, ready to dart back to her eyes whenever she looked away from the big window where she stared as she spoke. She had a fast, breathy way of talking about her ideas and goals—the interplay of structure as sculptural form with light.

“Light?” Menardo had echoed. He had narrowly escaped her eyes catching his on her breasts. Light had been the lead-in topic to their fateful discussion, enthusiastic planning, splendid rolls of blueprints, and finally, the opulent marble staircase to the second level. Menardo had learned that day to speak of “levels” rather than “floors.” Before he knew it, the time was up, and Señorita Martinez-Soto was showing him to the door. Menardo saw that all of the other offices were dark, and
all but a few of the cadres of draftsmen and typists had left for the day. It was seven
P.M
. and Menardo had been so entranced he had forgotten his promise to call Iliana at six
P.M
. Now all that seemed too far in the past to matter. The lights of the capital were blinking and blazing, and without weighing the considerations, Menardo asked Señorita Martinez-Soto if she would not like to accompany him to the tearoom of his hotel for refreshment. Menardo was very self-conscious. He thought “dinner” would have been too forward, and “cocktails” or “a drink” sounded too vulgar. He had only heard gossip or read about liberated women in popular magazines. He was not sure what he should do or what he should expect. But Señorita Martinez-Soto became very cool. She explained socializing was specifically forbidden by company policy unless both husband and wife could be present. Apparently something unfortunate had happened between a client and a junior partner, but it had been long before her arrival at the firm and she did not know the details. Certainly he understood, did he not? Menardo broke into a cold sweat of embarrassment. It was the sort of mistake he tried always to avoid because he knew what separated the social classes were these intricate and confusing rules of etiquette. As she showed him out of the suite to the elevators, she had smiled and told him he should discuss with his wife the points she had raised, and she would have the firm’s receptionist telephone the following week to schedule her visit to Tuxtla Gutiérrez. It would be impossible, she reminded him, to design any structure without first surveying the building site.

Menardo could not get her out of his mind. He speculated on her background. She could not have been of high birth or from great wealth. Menardo knew the daughters of those families would never have been allowed to take up a profession. Menardo was relieved she was not too far out of his class. He was not sure, but he thought in another year or two, as the bigger arms sales were made, the millions might raise him to her level and he and she might possibly be considered social equals.

BACK HOME, MENARDO FELT a little ashamed at the way the spell of the big city had overcome him. Iliana was happy and excited about the plans and the design of the new house. It was her chance to get even with sisters and brothers and in-laws who had been skeptical about the marriage. But Menardo had money, and her family had lost much of its wealth over the years. Still Iliana had been reminded, every day since she was three years old, that her great-great-grandfather on her mother’s side had descended from the conquistador De Oñate.

Menardo had been cautious about mentioning Señorita Martinez-Soto. He had even let Iliana go on calling the architect “he” until it was time to dress for the party at the Governor’s Palace. Then he had said:

“Oh, by the way, it is interesting, and I know you will like her—the architect who is doing the drawings is a woman.” Iliana had been intent on discovering whether Tacho, the sullen Indian chauffeur, had remembered to pick up the dry cleaning. She knew Menardo did not like to wear the brown suit to the Governor’s Palace where the governor and the general and the ambassador would all be in military regalia. Naturally Iliana understood the importance of these details. In the months of their engagement she had done all she could to give helpful hints to Menardo so her parents and relatives would find him more acceptable. The consequence of these months of exchanging brown shoes or tan shoes for the dignity of black had made Menardo prone to fits of temper just before leaving the house for society “functions” as he called them. But Tacho never forgot anything, and almost as if he knew what the Señora was thinking, he sent the cook from the kitchen to remind the Señora the dry cleaning was hanging in the hall closet. Tacho favored the Señora because she had permitted him to keep his pet macaws in a tree behind the old garage.

Iliana brought Menardo the black suit and ruffled white shirt. She asked Menardo if the senior partner was sure this woman had the necessary capabilities. Menardo could feel himself move within, away from excitement and anticipation he could not pin down, to irritation, then
fury, with Iliana and her dumb questions. Iliana had spoiled the new feeling he had been enjoying as he bathed. She was always raising worries where none should be. Iliana was insisting on an expensive automobile, a bulletproof Mercedes, because she felt they had reached “that level,” the highest of society. Iliana had only attended the nun’s school through the seventh level because her parents believed further education only confused young women. Iliana had never been confused, but she had always been uneasy. She had been born into a family set on the brink of ruin by dirty, stupid Indians who had no understanding of how much they needed their
patróns
to keep the world running productively. Even after Menardo had loaned large sums of money to her father and three brothers, thus establishing himself, Iliana still was gnawed by the fear that disaster was stalking all of them. Sometimes the fear surged up in her stomach causing her to have to excuse herself from her parents’ dinner table, or to have to leave the ballroom for the ladies’ lounge. Iliana had thought for a long time that a house that was slightly larger than the old family home would
prove
her husband to the rest of the family. Iliana did not want the design spoiled. She felt a little angry the architecture firm had put their dream house in the hands of a woman.

Iliana did not exactly argue. From their house to the Governor’s Palace she had listened as Menardo reeled off Miss Martinez-Soto’s academic honors and professional prizes. But when Menardo would look to see if that had satisfied her, Iliana would say, “I don’t know,” which prompted Menardo to launch into another description of the size of her office and its proximity to the offices of the junior associates and senior partners. The last time Iliana said “Well, I’m not so sure,” Menardo had taken his head in both hands as if to shake his brains around. All he could think of were the years they had been engaged in this ritual to prove he was worthy enough despite all the money her family had received from Menardo. Iliana shut up when she saw the violence with which he seized his own head. Menardo had never laid a hand on her, but he had often shouted at her and told her how stupid or how greedy she was.

Dinners at the Governor’s Palace were business affairs, Menardo reminded Iliana. However gay or social they might seem to her, she should be careful not to interrupt or join in conversations with him and the men, although the former ambassador’s wife often did. The governor’s wife used to remain so the former ambassador’s wife, an American woman, would not be alone with the men. The American woman did
not speak or understand Spanish well, and the other women had devoted part of the evening to a discussion of the lack of refinement in certain women who slipped into places and occasions where they had no business. Iliana leaped upon the subject tonight with a special appetite because the woman architect had begun to worry her. Iliana was anxious to have the other women agree with her because Menardo seemed so determined to leave their dream house in the hands of Miss Martinez-Soto.

The judge’s wife said that she had recently read a magazine article that concluded that work outside the home caused infertility and sterility in women. The police chief’s wife cleared her throat, and the judge’s wife appeared flustered for a moment. The women had an understanding: they avoided topics and names, and even words that might in any way connect one of themselves with an upsetting incident or circumstance. Iliana had been trying for years to carry a child to term. How many times had each of them carried bouquets of gardenias and miniature roses to the hospital bed where Iliana sat clutching the bed sheet to her belly, tears streaming out of her eyes, without a sound. But Iliana took no notice of the reference to barrenness, perhaps because Menardo had stopped sleeping with her. It had been kind of the judge’s wife, really, to mention the effects of careers on women such as Miss Martinez-Soto. Iliana felt better. That other woman was no threat.

Menardo could hardly concentrate on the conversation after dinner because he was rehearsing imaginary conversations between himself and Miss Martinez-Soto. This was very unlike Menardo, who had learned it pays to listen closely to the conversations of men such as the judge and the police chief. In this district, the judge and the police chief had certain powers that rivaled those of the governor and even the former ambassador. The ambassador had retired from his post in Washington, D.C., to manage business affairs for a wealthy American with vast holdings in Guatemala and Colombia. The women informed their husbands the former ambassador’s wife had complained he traveled far more now than he ever had. The wives did not expect to know what importance, if any, might be attached to all this travel. They reported the information so their husbands would praise them. The former ambassador’s wife complained in public and sometimes even argued with him. The wives were encouraged to report gossip and incidents out of the ordinary so they would be useful to their husbands not simply as wives and the mothers of their sons, but as patriots.