The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini (19 page)

We stood at the foot of the bed and stared at him. Certainly, it was strange that a man should be lying in one of Pacheco's upstairs rooms, but what made it so striking was the eccentricity of the room itself, with its colors and pictures and every surface jammed with objects. It was so hot that after a moment we were all sweating.

“Who is he?” asked Dalakis, as if the man weren't really in the room, for although we'd been staring at him and he apparently had been staring back, he made no sound or gesture.

“His name is Roberto. Roberto Collura,” said Pacheco. “He is Señora Puccini's fiancé.”

“Can he speak?” asked Malgiolio, almost breathlessly.

“He used to be able to, or at least he could a little. Now I'm not sure whether he refuses to or if he has lost the ability. You see, he's paralyzed from about the nose down.”

“But what's he doing here?” asked Dalakis.

“He lives here,” said Pacheco. “He's lived in this house for as long as I have. He's been with me for about twenty years.”

Truly this Roberto Collura was a pathetic sight, made even more pathetic by the riot of color which surrounded him, but equally remarkable was Pacheco's voice. How cold it was and full of scorn. How much he seemed to hate the man who lay on the bed. We all wanted to ask why he was here, and in fact the question was about to explode from each of us, but then we heard rapid footsteps in the hall and Señora Puccini hurried into the room.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

The doctor looked at her coolly. “I was showing them Roberto,” he said. “After all, how can I explain your life with me unless they meet Roberto Collura?”

“You said you wouldn't bother him,” said Señora Puccini. “That was part of our agreement.”

“Agreements change,” said Pacheco.

How can I describe Señora Puccini's anger? I had been used to her face as smooth and expressionless as the front of a building. To say it was contorted would be to say nothing. It was dark red. Veins stood out at the temples. The skin was stretched as if the whole under part was about to burst through the surface. It reminded me of magazine photos of space pilots forced to undergo extreme gravity. Both Malgiolio and Dalakis stared at her with alarm and apprehension. I glanced at Pacheco and saw he was smiling. It wasn't a mocking or cynical smile but one of true pleasure, as if she had done something particularly to gratify him.

“Get out!” she demanded. “I won't stand for your being here!”

Pacheco walked to the door and held it open for us. “We were just leaving,” he said.

A
s we descended the stairs from Roberto Collura's room, I trailed behind, letting the circle of light thrown by Pacheco's candle get about twenty feet ahead, separating me into the dark. Do you remember being caught by your parents doing something you shouldn't? That's how I felt when Señora Puccini had discovered us, and I wished to disassociate myself from my comrades. Not that I was less interested than they, but my interest, as well as theirs of course, felt slightly improper. It seemed unclean.

Naturally, it wasn't, unless curiosity itself can be called unclean. But her anger and the way she had surprised us made me think I had behaved badly and so I hung back and watched my comrades descend the great candlelit staircase—Pacheco first in his gray suit, then Malgiolio short and rotund several steps behind, then Dalakis shambling and bearlike and rubbing his head. I paused at the top and once more had the sense of the layered quality of time and memory so that I wasn't looking at my friends at just that particular moment but at many moments stretched over our boyhood. Always Pacheco was in the lead and too often we were returning from some deed that would have been better left undone. Then once more I pushed those other occasions from my mind as I watched Pacheco make his way across the hall to the cook, the noise of whose breathing still filled the house as water fills a cup. Juan sat cross-legged beside her, stroking her brow. Malgiolio paused by the fountain. I continued my descent and had just joined him and Dalakis when there was a great booming knock on the door.

The knocking was so aggressive that all three of us grew as nervous as forest creatures poised on the brink of flight. Is the comparison hyperbolic? Possibly in memory I had inflated an innocent reaction into a guilty one, although I am certain that emotionally, even irrationally, I tied the loud knocking to our expulsion from the bedroom of Roberto Collura. Let it be enough to say we were in a nervous state, which perhaps stemmed from no more than the night itself. Pacheco, who had been kneeling beside Madame Letendre, got to his feet. “Go into the dining room,” he said. “I'll join you shortly.”

We didn't run, but walked briskly. Why did I feel we would be called to account for our behavior? The image of the paralyzed man kept returning to me and I thought of him lying there year after year in the midst of that glittering clutter which existed not just to entertain him but to take the place of the world. We resumed our seats. My wine glass was full but I didn't want any more. I found myself desiring sugar, chocolate, anything sweet, but surely that was the temptation of my disease, more aptly described by its German name:
Zucrekrank,
sugarsick.

The others turned out to be thinking about Roberto Collura as well. Dalakis leaned toward me and began to speak in a kind of urgent whisper. “He brought her with him from the south. That's why she's here, just so she can take care of her fiancé.”

“But why is he paralyzed?” asked Malgiolio. For the first time the table was empty of food and Malgiolio glanced about him with the expression of a child who has misplaced a favorite toy. He drank a little wine.

“Do you remember that story years ago that Pacheco had shot somebody in a duel?” asked Dalakis, still in hushed tones, “I can't remember the details, but perhaps that is what happened to the man upstairs. Perhaps Pacheco fought him and this was the result.”

Malgiolio made an amused chuffing noise through his nose. “Really, Carl, why do you need to improve on everything? He might simply have been sick, some lingering disease that has reduced him to that condition.”

Together they had articulated our main question: Could the man have ended up in that state without Pacheco being responsible? How far might he have gone in his pursuit of Antonia Puccini? Of course, I refused to believe that Pacheco could be blamed in the matter. Malgiolio was probably right; and as for Dalakis, he had shown himself not entirely objective in his feelings toward the doctor.

“We should never have come,” said Dalakis. “This is an evil house.”

Again Malgiolio made his chuffing noise. It wasn't like laughter so much as like blowing his nose. “We have done what we ought not to have done and we have not done what we ought to have done. Is that how it goes?” He somewhat condescendingly reached his little hand across the table to Dalakis, who ignored it. “You've spent your life in a cave, my friend, I can tell you far more sordid stories than this one.”

I was afraid we might be forced to hear a couple, but at that instant Pacheco walked briskly through the door. “Schwab's here,” he said. “He's starving. I've told Señora Puccini to bring back the food.”

Eric Schwab entered immediately after. He paused to take in the room, then smiled and opened his arms in an expansive gesture. He was a large blond man dressed in a blue uniform that had been so carefully tailored that it didn't seem to be clothing as much as an extra layer of skin. Usually when I saw him he was wearing a suit and tie. In fact, I don't think I'd ever seen him in uniform. He was a high-ranking official in the police department, although I never really knew what he did. People said it was something in counterintelligence. That was perhaps the politest description of his job. Whatever it was, many people were afraid of him.

Schwab walked rapidly to each of us and we stood up and embraced. He had a red bricklike face, as if his collar were too tight, and a large muscular chest and shoulders. He smelled of talcum powder and leather. Schwab has always struck me as someone entirely without a moral sense. Even as a child his behavior seemed governed by the prospect of punishment or reward. Once, when I asked him why he had taken a job with the police department, he told me, “I have a skill and my skill is for sale.” And when I asked him what he meant, he gave me a smile that seemed to indicate that I was an innocent fellow who shouldn't ask such questions. Somehow it seemed typical of him that he should be five hours late for dinner and still expect to be fed.

There were four times the number of empty places as occupied ones at the long table, and Schwab took the seat beside Malgiolio and across from Dalakis. To each of us he said some small personal thing. For instance, to me he said how much he enjoyed my reviews in the paper, particularly a recent piece comparing several books about show dogs. We have never been close but Schwab is one of those people who treats everyone as if he were a best friend. I find it amazing that he can decide upon each of his potential actions entirely according to its effectiveness. Never would he behave, as it were, accidentally. Despite his apparent delight in our company, these dinners are the only times that any of us ever see him.

“Well,” said Pacheco, pouring Schwab some wine, “tell us what's happening in the city. We've been unable to get any news.”

“Pah, a few students, a few malcontents. It's nothing, just a lot of noise.”

“But what are the fires we've seen from the roof?” asked Dalakis.

Taking some wine, Schwab let it slosh back and forth in his mouth, breathed across it, even chewed it, then looked at Pacheco and winked. After this demonstration of pleasure, he tapped one finger to the side of his nose and smiled at Dalakis benignly. “There was a little trouble at the university. Several buildings were seized and some fires started. Also some cars were burned. A few students even had guns. These were joined or aided by a mutinous air force regiment. For a while, yes, there was a bit to excitement, but how could they do anything against the combined force of the police and military? The city is full of unhappy people and at a time of instability there is always a certain amount of trouble-making.”

He spoke as if the subject were inconceivably minor.

“But what is this continued shooting?” asked Pacheco.

“Curfew violators, a few would-be rebels with guns, perhaps even fireworks . . . Ahh,” he said, as Señora Puccini entered wheeling a cart laden with food, “now I can eat. I can't tell you how sorry I was when I thought I would have to miss my friends for another six months. So there are only four of you?”

“We're all that came,” I said, “and we live nearby.”

“Yes, of course,” said Schwab, shaking his head, “the roadblocks. What a nuisance.” He began eating immediately and continued talking with his mouth full, swallowing rapidly and washing down the food with more wine. While we had had our various courses in succession, Schwab's came all together, so that he was surrounded by a dozen heaping plates, including even the oysters. “My dear Pacheco, this veal is tremendous. And the salmon!” Scooping up an oyster, he dabbed it with horseradish and tilted it high over his mouth so it slid half off the shell, hung for a moment, then dropped. It seemed like an immoral amount of food. Even Malgiolio appeared impressed. I felt sure that Señora Puccini was engaging in a kind of bitter joke. She poured him a second glass of wine, then went out to the hall. Schwab never once looked at her. Again the noise of the cook's breathing grew louder as she opened the door. Schwab took a mouthful of this, then a mouthful of that, turning quickly from plate to plate, then glancing up at us, dragging his napkin across his shiny and food-smeared mouth, then smiling.

“What a feast!” said Schwab. Truly, he held a fork in each of his great red hands. “When have we last eaten like this, Batterby?”

“I really can't say.” I was struck by how healthy and happy Schwab looked, as if he had just returned from a week at the beach, instead of forcing his way through whatever violence was occurring in the city.

“They don't eat like this anymore, that's the sad truth. Do you remember that party in the country we went to as young men? It must have been over twenty years ago. They had tables and tables of wonderful food. Some pretty girl had come of age and her parents were rich.”

“I don't think I was there,” said Dalakis.

“I remember it,” said Malgiolio suddenly. He had been staring at Schwab not exactly with awe but as one might stare at a television personality. “And Pacheco was there as well. Fillet of beef Wellington. How could I ever forget. An endless supply of food and drink.”

“That's right,” said Schwab, “and I remember that Vicuña and Machado were there, as well as Kress and maybe Shapiro. And Batterby was there with his wife. And poor old Keester, he was killed about a year after that.”

These were all members of our group. “No,” I told him, “I remember the party, but it was before my marriage, about six months before.” Malgiolio had taken a fork and was helping himself to some of Schwab's veal. Some people have no shame.

“I was sure it was after,” said Schwab, “because it was in the summer and your wedding was the previous fall. That too was a wonderful feast. How perfect to relive the great feasts of one's life. I've always regretted not keeping a culinary diary to describe those wonderful meals. Then when I was old and without teeth and half a stomach, I could read about those days and all those wonderful tastes would come back to me.”

“What makes you think you'll reach old age?” asked Pacheco, rather tonelessly.

Schwab laughed as if the joke were the funniest he'd heard in weeks, then he choked on some succulent morsel, coughed until he turned purple, and drank down more wine. His blond hair was cut short and his forehead was a perfect rectangle. All in all he seemed composed of rectangular slabs of pink flesh.

“How true,” he said, smiling kindly at Pacheco. “But then my children could enjoy it. That beef Wellington, for instance. And do you remember the lobster thermidor, Malgiolio, and the salmon? I'm sure it was after your wedding, Batterby. Ah, Pacheco, I can't tell you how I regret not having gotten here earlier, that we all couldn't have been here. The veal is astonishing. What a memory it would have been for the group. Now, if we all live, we'll have to wait another seven or eight years for your turn to come again.”

As I watched Schwab stuff himself, I felt somewhat disappointed in him. If I couldn't hear the rest of Pacheco's story, then I wanted to know more about the violence we had seen from the roof, even from the balcony outside the bathroom. Schwab was an emissary from that violent world. Surely there were stories he could tell.

“How did you get here?” I asked. “Isn't it dangerous?”

Schwab took a moment to swallow his food. As he looked at me with those pale blue eyes, I felt he disliked my question. Not that he frowned, rather he smiled a trifle less. “The streets seem quiet, but even so I was able to commandeer an armored car.”

“But what will we find tomorrow?” asked Dalakis. “What will the city be like?”

“How can we ever know that, my friend?” asked Schwab, wiping his face with his napkin. He seemed charmed by Dalakis's question. “Isn't the future in doubt even in the most peaceful times? I look at it this way: It takes the light of the sun eight minutes to reach the earth. So if the sun blinked out this very instant, we would have eight minutes of warmth, eight minutes of further life. And who's to say? Maybe it has already been out two, three, five minutes. That's how I live, as if the sun had already blinked out. As for tomorrow? Events have taken the city by the neck and shaken it a bit. The dust is resettling. You have to be patient. Who knows, perhaps tomorrow we'll all be lying in the morgue.” Here Schwab laughed again, a mixture of coughing and laughing, and I watched several small particles of food shoot from his mouth back onto his plate and the surrounding tablecloth. “But truly this is a busy time and I can only stay a few minutes. Just long enough to take a few bites and run. I wanted to pay my respects, that's all, and to taste what your marvelous cook has prepared.”

I don't think Schwab realized that the woman who had cooked the meal was noisily dying out in the hall. But even had he known, I doubt it would have affected him. At one time I thought Schwab rather callous, but then I decided he had entirely no sense of other people, as if they were like abstractions to him. He had never married and because of that some people liked to say he was homosexual, but I gather he had a mistress and saw other women as well. When we were teenagers and even later, he loved to go to whorehouses and knew dozens of them. I have no idea where he got the money. Even though his parents were not well off, Schwab never seemed to go short. And he was generous with it, I'll say that for him. If he had the money and you were with him, he'd pay all the bills.