Mystery Girl: A Novel (29 page)

PART VI

LALALAND

75

THE TAXI MADE FOR
the open road.

After the initial storm of disbelief, in which I could only agree, with everyone, that in fact it was crazy but in fact it was my wife, and after I explained that Lala was Mexican, and that she had left me, and after I told Ramón the name of her hometown, San Pancho, a small place which he knew and said was a few hours away, he finally nodded, frowned, and lit Marlboro Reds for everyone but me: “So. I will take you to your wife’s village and we will see.”

We then lapsed into a bumpy silence. The Blind Uncle rode up front with Ramón. Nic and I were in the back with Uncle Coffee and Donuts, grave and stately in his tall hat. There were no seat belts naturally, but there was an old portable black-and-white TV sitting on the dashboard, strapped down with a frayed cord, a soccer game flickering in and out. Who was this for? The blind man or the driver? Maybe it was to entertain paying passengers. All the windows were down, and as soon as we found the highway and began to pick up speed, fresh air swirling our hair and blowing through our minds, the mood automatically quickened. Even I, clouded with confusion, felt myself lean into the wind. My life was a smoking wreck. I had nothing. I knew nothing. I was adrift in the whirlwind, speeding into the unknown. Thinking seemed pointless, impossible. Everything just blew away.

Ramón, Blind Uncle, Coffee and Donuts, and Nic all puffed happily, smoke swirling. We raced forward, the little engine whining, bouncing over humps, flying around turns, right into the jungle,
never braking for a curve or a slope. I gasped and grimaced and braced for the short stop, when that TV would decapitate the blind man and send his head spinning into my lap.

But everybody drove that way here, zooming, swerving, surging ahead in all manner of eccentric
Road Warrior
vehicles, high on spirit and speed. We hopped into the wrong lane to pass a rusty pickup full of Indians, who waved as we sped by and straight at an oncoming truck, whose driver didn’t slow down at all, but winked his lights, as we swerved right to cut in front of a wood-paneled truck loaded stories high with sugarcane, a dark, barefoot boy in a headscarf sitting on top, holding a machete like a pirate. Three shirtless smoking men were in the cab, and they smiled serenely down on us as we slipped in and survived. Then a grandma on a small Japanese motorbike with a sidecar full of bananas merged from nowhere and we narrowly avoided killing her. Ramón immediately began leaning into the wrong lane, looking for a way to pass her, but more trucks were barreling toward us, and suddenly we had to duck back to avoid three flying cars that buzzed up from behind the sugar mountain and hopped in front of us. Each was more wrecked than the last: First came a Corolla with smoked-out gangster windows and mismatched parts, a yellow front quarter panel on a black car with one red door. Next was a Chevy Malibu missing a door altogether. Two skinny men and one very fat woman sat together up front. In the back a man reclined, feet up sideways, peeling a banana and grinning at us from the open doorway. I don’t know what the last car was, it no longer had any particular make, covered in primer, rattling and jumping, front and back windshields crackled, dragging a muffler like a holiday sparkler and spitting black smoke. Ramón, however, didn’t seem annoyed at being cut off by three cars, and in fact they right away began encouraging us to cut them back, waving and flashing. Answering the call, Ramón hit the gas and sent us hurtling into oncoming traffic. I held my breath as a bus appeared ahead. We passed two cars. Our engine droned and cried. The Death Bus
loomed. I shut my eyes. At the last second, the Chevy Three-Door dropped back to let us in and we slid into our own lane again.

Yet somehow, despite the velocity and the recklessness, the anger that is ever-present in American traffic was entirely absent, replaced by an openhearted exhilaration. Road rage was road joy.

As we broke through to the shoreline and flowed along the beach, we passed a row of brand-new, mass-produced McPalaces, concrete pillars and satellite dishes, fences and four-car garages. The sun and sea shone through the gap where one house seemed to have collapsed into a drift of bricks and plaster.

“These houses belong to smugglers,” Ramón shouted into the air, like a tour guide.

“What happened to that one?” Nic asked about the wreck.

“He had some trouble with the Federales, and when they came to take him he was gone, into the jungle. So they knocked down his house.” We took in this monument to justice. Ramón glanced back at me over his shoulder. “We are almost at San Pancho. It is a very small town, a fishing village where some rich gringos have winter houses. We will find the church where your wife’s birth was recorded and see if her family is still around.”

“OK,” I called back. Uncle Coffee and Donuts nodded at me manfully, and over his shoulder, the Blind Uncle gave me a thumbs-up.

76

THE SIGN SAID WE
were entering San Francisco, which everyone unanimously called San Pancho, the place where Lala had mentioned, vaguely, that she was born. It was a beach town, low white buildings asleep in the sun, wavering palms, their fronds a deeper green than in LA, and the Pacific a warmer, more royal blue. Hills climbed high above the village, hung with clusters of bright bougainvillea
and hibiscus, and broken here and there by the gleaming homes of the white, empty until winter.

We parked in the town plaza and stepped into the small church. Again the cooling darkness swallowed us, as if we’d descended into a cave. Ramón spoke to an old woman in black who was lighting candles. She led him, Nic, and me into the back, where the priest was in his office. The uncles took a seat in the rear pew.

We followed the little round lady as she waddled down a narrow hall and opened a door, smiling as she waved us in. After the chapels, the priest’s office was antiglamorous, small and jammed with a cheap Formica desk, a pleather chair patched with duct tape, two battered seats, and a worn couch for guests. Papers were piled everywhere, and filing cabinets lined the walls. The priest, a portly gray fellow in a white shirt and black pants but without his dog collar, sipped coffee from a paper cup and flicked ashes into an overflowing tray the size of a hubcap.

“Buenos días,”
he said, smiling but grunting a little as he hauled himself up to shake hands. Ramón made the introductions and we all mucho gusto–ed, after which he sank back down with a sigh of relief. Ramón took out his Marlboros and offered them around. The priest lit up delightedly and leaned back in his chair, smoke blowing high like a whale’s spout. He crossed his fingers behind his head, so that I was constantly distracted by the threat that he might set fire to what was left of his hair. He switched to English for my sake.

“So, señor, how can I help you? I understand you need information for your wife?”

“Thank you. You see, she’s missing and I’m trying to learn about her background. She was born here in San Pancho.”

“You think she’d come back here?”

“No…”

Ramón intervened. “You see, padre, my cousin died recently. Her funeral was this morning.”

“I’m sorry, my son.”

“Yes, thank you. We had not seen her for many years, and there is
some question that she was connected with this man’s wife, or that the two women were using the same name. You see, we could not have an open casket, due to how she died. In a fall.”

Ramón glanced at us and I realized that of course they had lied to everyone about the cause of death. Catholics. Otherwise they would have had to bury her alone, far from the company of the other righteous dead. The priest nodded sadly.

“Yes, it is a hard world. Only God knows why. I suppose we will have to look her up.” He stared at the filing cabinets as if having to stand and open one were the final proof of God’s injustice to man. “I will need your wife’s name and date of birth.”

I wrote out the information out on his desk pad, and he leaned forward with a grunt, his chair cushion farting as he shifted, and found some glasses. He held them in front of his face. “The family name is a common one here but I don’t remember the girl. I was not the priest in this church when she was baptized.” With a further sigh, he stood, tossed some ash over his desk as a blessing, and headed for the files.

“OK, births, births…” he muttered, searching back through the decades. Ramón watched patiently. I could see Nic squirming.

“M, M, M…” He opened a drawer marked
I–N
and files burst out like a bouquet. Nic hopped to her feet and handed him the fallen papers. “Bless you, dear,” he muttered and stuffed them in a basket on top. He continued ruffling, ashes scattering among the leaves. Ramón looked sleepy. Nic looked enraged.

“Ah, here it is!” he called out, sounding much too surprised. He read: “Eulalia Natalia Santoya de Marías de Montes.” He handed the paper to me and we all gazed down. Indeed it was a birth certificate in my wife’s name. Though of course to me this wasn’t ever her real name. She was Lala.

“You know, let me just check something else,” the priest said, buoyed by his success. He pulled another fat folder out and flipped through. “
Sí, sí,
it is as I thought. Look.” He handed it to us. It had Lala’s name as well. Otherwise, I didn’t understand, but Ramón did.

“A death certificate,” he said. “For six months after the birth.”

“Sí.”
The priest nodded sadly and returned to his desk. He lit up a fresh smoke and sat back, exhausted. “You see, it’s a typical technique for acquiring false papers here. You find a child who died very young, which was still quite common in the poor towns. You request a birth certificate as if it were your own or your relative’s, perhaps showing some fake ID like a student card that is easy to obtain. Of course the clerk has no reason to cross check with deaths, it’s not his concern, he provides the document. Now you can use this to get a passport, driver’s license, whatever.” He folded his hands atop his head again so that the smoke spiraled up from his skull. “I don’t know why your wife, or your cousin, needed a false name, but you did not bury this person today. Eulalia Natalia Santoya de Marías de Montes has been dead for almost thirty years.”

77

WE ATE. AGAIN
. It had been another long day and this time no one spoke much as we sat around the table while the sun sank, shelling shrimp grilled in garlic and sucking down raw oysters that a man on crutches shucked to order and that we dosed, of course, with chile and lime. I finally got my Coke and insisted on paying the bill for the table, which was ridiculously cheap.

They dropped us at a small hotel, Ramón checking with the clerk to be sure we knew where the bus to Puerto Vallarta would depart, across the village square, in the morning. We all hugged and smacked each other’s shoulders and commended one another to God. We might be hopelessly separated by culture and language, but we’d shared a drunken adventure and that bonded us for life. We waved them off in the taxi like old pals, then went back inside, where the dude with the walrus mustache and the big hat, the one who’d
been reading the paper in the bar back in Tepic, was waiting with a stink bomb cigar in his teeth.

“Señor?”
He stopped me, mirror shades flashing. It was ridiculous to be wearing them at night, of course, but the effect was menacing and I stepped back, expecting more trouble. He held out a note. I took it cautiously, at arm’s length, as if it were a gag. He tipped his hat and stepped back, taking up a position by the door, where he puffed his cigar and waited politely.

“What the fuck?” Nic whispered. “I’ve had enough for one day.”

“I think that guy’s been following us.”

“In the truck!” she said and punched my arm. Again. I was going to have bruises. I opened the note. It was neatly typed in English: If you want to know what happened to her follow this man.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Which ‘her’ does he mean?” Nic asked. “The cousin? Your wife?”

“Whichever. Do we go or not?”

She sighed. “I guess we have to. That’s why we’re here.” She turned to the waiting stranger.
“Vámonos,”
she said.

He led us around the corner to an old Ford pickup and gestured for us to climb into the bed. It did indeed look like the one that had been following us. I gave Nic a boost and hauled myself up, barely settling on a wooden crate before we jolted into action.

“Look on the bright side,” I said. “If this is a kidnapping, security’s pretty lax.”

We left the town and began climbing, slowly, up into the hills. Almost instantly we were in darkness. But unlike a sealed bedroom, this was jungle darkness, thick and warm, wrapping you in itself, like the hot breath and soft fur of an animal rubbing against your face and brushing your shoulders. The sky was riddled with stars. We jolted left, climbing higher, and the trees closed over us and there was nothing but the headlights breaking the blackness ahead and the chatter and chirp of the nightlife all around us. The truck turned again, onto a dirt road now, and the lights showed a white retaining
wall, then a gate. The stranger punched a code and it swung back. We were on a steep driveway made of cobblestones. In the moonlight, a big white house towered up before us and we stopped. The stranger helped us out. He pointed at the open door. He tipped his hat. And while we stood and dithered, he hopped back in the truck and he left. So we went inside.

78

THE MAIN ROOM OF
the house was huge, with adobe walls and thick rafters vaulting a high ceiling. There was an open kitchen with a serious stove and copper pots hanging from the crossbeam, as well as a long, thick dining table and couches and sunken armchairs around a fireplace of pig roast proportions. Sliding doors opened to a large patio and a pool. There were many books, in English, Spanish, French, and German. There were all manner of crafty and arty knickknacks around, clay figurines and stone bowls, woven blankets and torturous candelabras. But the most striking thing, aside from the amazing view of jungle, beach, and crashing sea that leapt up as you entered, was the art on the walls: large unframed canvases painted with bright, simplistic forms, whether deliberately primitivist or simply primitive I couldn’t say, all depicting the same woman—Mona, or one possible Mona, anyway—her face, her nude body, in thick strokes against fields of color, sometimes covering the whole canvas in deep paint, sometimes with bald patches shining through. In some pictures the setting was clearly this house. I recognized a large leather chair and the bougainvillea pouring over the white patio wall. In others, she seemed to be involved in some mythological or ritualistic drama, holding a spear or whip or wearing a childish crown and sitting on a throne, holding hands with the devil while nude men groveled at their feet, or else hoisting a torch to awkwardly light a bonfire, while witches and demons pranced.