The Listening Walls

3.

It was Sunday afternoon when Wilma awoke from her long sleep. She felt weak and hungry, but her mind was extraordinarily clear, as if a storm had passed through her during the night leaving the inner air fresh and clean.

As she showered and dressed, it seemed to her for the first time in many years that life was very simple and logical. She wished there were somebody around to whom she could communicate this sudden revelation. But Amy had gone, leaving a note that she would be back at four, and the young waiter who brought her breakfast tray only grinned nervously when she tried to tell him how simple life was.

“When you’re tired, you sleep.”

“Si, señora.”

“When you’re hungry, you eat. Simple, logical, basic.”“Si, señora, but I’m not hungry.”

“Oh, what the hell,” Wilma said. “Go away.”

The waiter had almost ruined her revelation, but not quite. She opened the balcony doors and addressed the warm, sunny afternoon: “I shall be absolutely basic all day. No fuss, no frills, no getting upset. I must concentrate only on the essentials.”

The first essential was, obviously, food. She was hungry, she would eat.

She removed the cover from the ham and eggs. They were black with pepper, and the tomato juice tasted strongly of limes. Why in God’s name did they have to put lime juice on everything? It was difficult enough to be basic, without fools and incompetents thwarting you at every corner.

I am hungry, I will eat turned into I am hungry, I must eat and finally I’ll eat if it kills me. By that time she was no longer hungry. The revelation joined its many predecessors in oblivion and life once more became, as it always had been for Wilma, complex and bewildering.

Later in the afternoon Amy returned with an armload of packages. She found Wilma in the sitting room reading a copy of the Mexico City News and drinking a Scotch and soda.

Wilma peered over the top of her spectacles. “Buy anything interesting?”

“Just a few little things for Gill’s children. The stores were jammed. It seems funny, everyone shopping on Sunday.” She put her packages on the coffee table beside the silver box. “How are you feeling?”

“All right. I must have passed out like a light after the doctor gave me that junk.”

“Yes.”

“What did you do all evening?”

“Nothing.”

Wilma looked faintly exasperated. “You can’t have done nothing. Nobody does nothing.”

“I do. I did.”

“What about dinner?”

“I didn’t have any.”

“Why not?”

“I was — upset.” Amy sat down stiffly on the edge of a green leather chair. “The box came.”

“So I see.”

“It looks very expensive.”

“It was,” Wilma said. “The least they could have done was wrap it. My purchases are my own private business.”

“Not this one.”

“Obviously not.” Wilma tossed the newspaper on the floor and took off her spectacles. She couldn’t read without the spectacles, since she was far-sighted, but she could see across the room better without them. Amy’s face looked pale and numb. “I gather you noticed the initials?”

“Yes.”

“And concluded, of course, that Rupert and I are madly in love; that we have, in fact, been carrying on an affair for years and years behind your...”

“Shut up,” Amy said. “I hear the girl in the bedroom.”

Consuela had let herself in with her passkey and was now making up the beds. Her shoulders slumped and her feet dragged from weariness because she’d had a fight with her boyfriend that had lasted well into the night. The cause of the fight was, to Consuela, absolutely ridiculous. All she did was pilfer a black nylon slip from 411, but her boyfriend became very angry and told her she would lose her job and accused her of trying to steal the smell off a goat if she got the chance. Besides all that, the slip had been too small for her and she’d torn the seams attempting to force it over her hips.

Life was unfair. Life was cruel as a bull’s horn. Consuela groaned as she changed the sheets, and made small suffering sounds as she slopped a little water around the washbasin. Why would I steal the smell off a goat?

“You’re jealous,” Wilma said softly. “Is that it?”

“Of course not. It just doesn’t seem proper to me. And if Gill finds out he’ll make a big fuss about it.”

“Don’t tell him, then.”

“I never tell him things. But he always finds out in some way.”

“Why do you still care what your brother thinks, at your age and weight?”

“He can cause a lot of trouble,” Amy said. “He’s always been suspicious of Rupert anyway. I don’t know why.”

“I could tell you why, but you wouldn’t like it. You probably wouldn’t even listen.”

“Then why bother telling me?”

“I’m not going to.” Wilma finished her drink. “So you don’t care whether I give Rupert the box, just so long as Gill doesn’t find out about it. That’s very funny.”

“Not to me, it isn’t. And I don’t see why you had to buy such an expensive gift in the first place.”

“Because I wanted to. You wouldn’t understand. You haven’t done anything because you wanted to in your whole life. I have. I do. I saw this box in the window of a little shop and it reminded me of something Rupert said once, that the sea looked like hammered silver. I never really understood what he meant until I saw the box. So I bought it. I simply went in and bought it, without thinking of money, or you, or Gill, or all your weird, complicated...”

“Not so loud. The girl...”

“The hell with the girl. The hell with the box, too. Take the damn thing and throw it over the balcony!”

“We can’t very well do that,” Amy said quietly. “There are too many people on the street. Someone might get hurt.”

“But that’s what you’d like to do, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, admit it. Admit something for a change. You want to get rid of the box.”

“Yes, but...”

“Do it then. Chuck the thing over the railing. That’ll be the end of it. And good, good riddance.”

In the bedroom Consuela let out a little bleat of protest. To throw a silver box out into the street like garbage would be a terrible sin. Suppose someone very rich saw it falling through the air and caught it and became even richer — Consuela groaned at the thought of such injustice and cursed herself for her stupidity in pretending to the two ladies that she couldn’t speak English. Now she could not present herself to them and state her case: I am a very poor and very humble peasant. Sometimes I am even tempted to steal...

No, that would not have been good, giving them ideas about her stealing. Perhaps it was just as well that she had pretended not to know English. This way she could simply confront the ladies, looking very poor and humble and honest, and they might offer to give her the box.

Consuela glanced in the mirror above the bureau. How did one go about looking honest? It was not easy.

She picked up the carpet sweeper and headed for the sitting room, already making plans for the silver box. She would sell it and buy lottery tickets for tomorrow’s drawing. Then, on Tuesday morning when her winning number was published in the papers, she would tell her boyfriend to go kiss a goat, thumb her nose at the hotel manager, and leave immediately for Hollywood where she would have her hair bleached and walk among the movie stars.

She spoke in Spanish, sounding very poor and humble. “If the good ladies will excuse me, I have come to clean the room.”

“Tell her to go away and come back later,” Wilma said.

Amy shook her head. “I don’t know how.”

“I thought you took Spanish in high school.”

“That was over fifteen years ago and only for a semester.”

“Well, find the book of common phrases for tourists.”

“We — I left it on the plane.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Well, get rid of her some way.”

Consuela had discovered the silver box on the coffee table and was making excited noises over its beauty, its craftsmanship, and the number of lottery tickets it was worth.

“She must be talking about the box,” Amy said.

“Let her talk.”

“If you’re just going to throw it away anyway, you could give it to her instead.”

“I could,” Wilma said, “but I won’t. And who said I intended throwing it away?”

“You did. You practically promised.”

“Nothing of the sort. I said if you wanted to throw it away you were to go ahead and do it. But you didn’t have enough nerve, so you lost your chance. The box is mine. I bought it for Rupert and I’m giving it to Rupert.”

Consuela, cheated out of her blond hair and her movie stars, squawked in protest and held her hand against her heart as if it were breaking.

Wilma glared at her. “Go away. We’re busy. Come back later.”

“Oh, you are a wicked one,” Consuela moaned in Spanish. “A selfish one, a bad one. Oh, may you spend eternity in hell.”

“I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“Oh, I wish you could, you black witch with the evil eye. Children grow pale and sicken when you look at them. Dogs put their tails between their legs and slink away...”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Wilma said, addressing Amy. “I’m going to the bar.”

“Alone?”

“You’re perfectly welcome to come along.”

“It’s so early, barely five o’clock.”

“Then stay here. If you can dig up some of that high school Spanish of yours, I’m sure you and the girl can have a ball.”

“Wilma, don’t drink too much when you’re in this mood. It will only depress you.”

“I’m already depressed,” Wilma said. “You depress me.”

At seven o’clock Amy set out to look for her.

The hotel operated two bars, an elaborate one on the roof with a lively orchestra, and a smaller one between the lobby and the dining room for people who preferred martinis without music. Amy tipped the elevator boy two pesos and asked him what direction Wilma had taken.

“Your friend in the fur coat?”

“Yes.”

“First she went up to the roof garden. A little time later she came down again. She said the marimbas made it too noisy to talk.”

“Talk?” Amy said. “To whom?”

“The American.”

“What American?”

“He hangs around the bar. He is what you call homesick, for New York. He likes to talk to other Americans. He is harmless,” the boy added with a shrug. “A nobody.”

They were at a table in a corner of the crowded bar, Wilma and the harmless American, a dark-skinned, blond-haired young man in a garish green and brown striped sport coat. Wilma was doing the talking and the young man was listening and smiling, a trained professional smile without warmth or interest. He looked harmless enough, Amy thought. And he probably was — except to Wilma. Two marriages and two divorces had taught Wilma nothing about men; she was both too suspicious and too gullible, too aggressive and too vulnerable.

Amy crossed the room uncertainly, wanting to turn back, but wanting even more to be reassured that Wilma was all right, not drunk, not nervous. This is the wrong place for her. Tomorrow we’ll go to Cuernavaca as the doctor suggested. It will be more restful, there will be no homesick Americans.

“Why there you are,” Wilma said, very loudly and gaily. “Come on, sit down. I’d like you to meet a fellow San Franciscan. Joe O’Donnell, Amy Kellogg.”

Amy acknowledged the introduction with a slight nod and sat down. “So you’re from San Francisco, Mr. O’Donnell?”

“That’s right. But call me Joe. Everybody does.”

“I somehow got the impression you were from New York.”

O’Donnell laughed and said easily, “Woman’s intuition?”

“Partly.”

“Partly the sport jacket, maybe. I had it tailored in New York. Brooks Brothers.”

Brooks Brothers, my foot, Amy thought. “Indeed? How interesting.”

“Let’s have a drink,” Wilma said. “You sound too sober, Amy dear. Sober and mad. You’re always getting mad; you just don’t show it like the rest of us.”

“Oh, stop it, Wilma. I’m not mad.”

“Yes, you are.” Wilma turned to O’Donnell and put her hand on his sleeve. “You want to know what she’s mad about? Do you?”

“I can take it or leave it,” O’Donnell said lightly.

“Sure you want to know.”

“You’re drunk.”

“A little. A very very very little. Make up your mind. Do you want me to tell you what she’s mad about?”

“All right, spill it and get it over with.”

“She thinks — Amy is always thinking, it’s a very bad habit — she thinks I have designs on her husband because I bought him a silver box.”

O’Donnell grinned. “And have you?”

“Of course not,” Wilma said vigorously. “Rupert’s like a brother to me. Besides, I like to buy things for people. Sometimes, when I’m feeling good, that is. Other times I get depressed and stingy and I wouldn’t give the time of day to a blind man.”

“Right now you’re feeling good, eh?”

“Very good. Let me buy you a drink. Or perhaps you’d like a silver box?”

“We could start with the drink.”

“O.K. Waiter! Waiter! Three tequilas with lime.”

“Wilma,” Amy said. “Listen. Why don’t we go and have dinner?”

“Later, later. I’m not hungry right now.”

“I am.”

“You go and have dinner, then.”

“No. I’ll wait for you.”

“All right, wait. Just don’t sit there looking mad. Try to be cheerful.”

“I’m trying,” Amy said grimly, “harder than you think.”

O’Donnell’s smile was becoming a little strained. The evening wasn’t turning out as he’d planned — a few free drinks, some talk, perhaps a small loan. One woman he could usually handle nicely. Two women, especially two women who didn’t like each other, might become a burden. He wished there were some quick, quiet way of ditching them both without any hurt feelings. Hurt feelings could result in complaints to the manager, and he didn’t want the welcome mat pulled out from under him. The bar was his headquarters. He never got into any trouble. The Americans who came in were always glad to set up drinks for a fellow Friscan or New Yorker or Chicagoan or Angeleno or Milwaukeean or Denverite. Some of the cities he claimed as home he had visited. The others he’d read about or heard about. He’d never been to San Francisco but he’d seen many pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf and the cable cars. That was enough real information. The rest he could fake, including an address if he was asked for one. He always used the same address, Garden Street, because every city had a Garden Street.

“Eleven-twenty-five Garden Street,” he told Amy. “You probably never heard of it. It’s over on the east side of town. Or it was. They may have torn the whole district down by now and put up hotels or department stores. Are the cable cars still running?”

“Some of them,” Amy said.

“It makes me homesick just thinking about them.”

“Does it?” She wondered what place he was really homesick for; a farm in Minnesota, perhaps, or a little desert town in Arizona. She knew she would never find out. She couldn’t ask and he wouldn’t tell. “Is there anything to stop you from going home, Mr. O’Donnell?”

“Just a small matter of money. I’ve had some bad luck at the track.”

“Oh.”

His smile widened until it seemed almost genuine. “Yes. I’m a naughty boy, Mrs. Kellogg. I gamble. I have to.”

“Oh?”

“There’s no other way of making money. I can’t apply for any job without working papers and so far I haven’t been able to get any working papers. Say, this is beginning to sound like Be-Sorry-For-Joe O’Donnell night. Let’s can it. Let’s talk about you. What have you two ladies been doing for amusement in Mexico City?”

“Amusement?” Wilma lifted her brows. “I hardly know the meaning of the word anymore.”

“We’ll have to change that. How long will you be here?”

“We leave tomorrow,” Amy said. “For Cuernavaca.”

“That’s too bad. I was hoping to show you...”

“Cuerna — who?” Wilma said loudly to Amy.

“Cuernavaca.”

“And we leave tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Are you out of your mind? We just got here. Why in God’s name should we take off for a place I never even heard of, Cuern — whatever it is?”

“Cuernavaca,” said Amy patiently.

“Stop repeating it. It sounds like a disease of the spine.”

“It’s supposed to be very beautiful and...”

“I don’t care if it’s the original Garden of Eden,” Wilma said. “I’m not going. What put such a crazy idea in your head anyway?”

“The doctor suggested it, for the sake of your health.”

“My health is fine, thank you. You look after your own.”

The drinks came and O’Donnell sat without embarrassment while Wilma paid for them. A year ago, or two years, he might have been a little embarrassed. Now he was merely tired. The two ladies were, as he’d feared, becoming a burden. He wished they would go to Cuernavaca right away, tonight.

He said firmly, “No visitor to Mexico should miss Cuernavaca. Cortés’ palace is there, and the cathedral, just about the oldest cathedral in the republic. And birds, thousands of singing birds. If you like birds.”

“I hate birds,” Wilma said.

He went on to describe the climate, the tropical foliage, the beautiful plazas, until he realized that neither of the two women was paying the slightest attention to him. They had begun to argue again, about a man called Gill, and what Gill would think if he walked in right now, or if he ever found out.

O’Donnell got up and left.

Consuela quit work at eight o’clock and went down to the service entrance where her boyfriend was supposed to meet her. He wasn’t there, and one of the kitchen help told her he’d gone to the jai alai games.

Consuela cursed his pig eyes and his black heart and returned to her broom closet, determined on revenge. It wasn’t much of a revenge but it was all she could think of, to stay in the closet all night and let him worry about her and wonder why she didn’t come home and where she was.

She made herself as comfortable as possible on a bed of towels. There was no ventilation in the closet but Consuela didn’t mind this. The night air was bad anyway. It caused consumption, and if you had consumption you couldn’t get into the United States. The immigration authorities wouldn’t give you any papers.

She dozed off and dreamed that she was on a bus going to Hollywood. Suddenly the bus stopped and a bearded man who looked a little like Jesus opened the door and said, “Consuela Juanita Magdalena Dolores Gonzales, you have consumption. You must get off the bus immediately.” Consuela flung herself at his feet, weeping and pleading. He turned away from her sternly, and she began to scream.

When she first woke up she could hear herself screaming, but a moment later, sitting up, fully awake now, she realized it was not herself she’d heard screaming. It was one of the ladies in 404.

In spite of the lateness of the hour there were a dozen eyewitnesses who’d been passing on the avenida below the balcony of 404, each of them eager to give his version of what had happened.

The American lady paused at the railing and looked down before she jumped.

She did not look down. She knelt and prayed.

She didn’t hesitate a moment, just ran across the balcony and dived over.

She screamed as she fell.

She didn’t make a sound.

She carried in her arms a silver box.

Her arms were empty, flung wide to the heavens in supplication.

She turned over and over in the air.

She fell straight down and head first, like an arrow.

The eyewitnesses all agreed on one point: when she struck the pavement she died instantly.

In the hotel manager’s office Dr. Lopez gave a brief statement to the police. “I treated Mrs. Wyatt last night for a case of turista. An unhappy woman. Very nervous, very high-strung.”

“Very drunk,” said the bartender.

“Very rich,” Consuela said with a nervous giggle. “What a pity to die when one is rich.”

The doctor held up his hand for silence. “Kindly allow me to finish. My rounds begin in less than five hours and even a doctor requires some sleep. As I said before, you’ll get the complete story from Mrs. Kellogg when she recovers. How soon that will be depends on the hospital authorities. She’s suffered a bad shock. Moreover, when she fainted she struck her head on the bedpost, so she may have some degree of concussion as well. That’s all I can tell you.”

“I, too, am very nervous and high-strung,” said Mercado, the older of the two policemen. “Still, I do not leap off balconies.”

Dr. Lopez smiled without amusement. “You might one day, one balcony. Good morning, gentlemen.”

“Good morning, Doctor. Now you, Consuela Gonzales. You claim you were in the broom closet and heard a woman screaming. Which woman?”

“The small, brown-haired one.”

“Señora Kellogg?”

“Yes.”

“Was she just making a noise or was she screaming words?”

“Words. Like ‘stop’ and ‘help.’ Maybe others.”

“Just as a matter of curiosity, what were you doing in the broom closet at that hour?”

“Sleeping. I was very tired after work. I work hard, very very hard.” She threw a glance at Escamillo, the manager of the hotel. “Señor Escamillo doesn’t realize how hard I work.”

“That I don’t,” Escamillo said with a snort.

“No matter, no matter, no matter,” Mercado said. “Go on, señorita. You woke up and heard screaming. You rushed into 404. And?”

“The small one, Señora Kellogg, was lying on the carpet beside the bed. Her head was bleeding and she was unconscious. I couldn’t see the other one anywhere. I never thought to look over the balcony. How could I think of such a thing? To take one’s own life, it is a mortal sin.” Consuela crossed herself, fearfully. “The room smelled of drinking and there was half a bottle of whiskey on the bureau. I tried to give the señora some to wake her up but it just spilled all over.”

“So you drank the rest yourself,” said Escamillo, the manager.

“The merest drop. To keep my strength up.”

“Drop. Ha! You reek of it,” said Señor Escamillo.

“I will not be insulted by any pig of a man!”

“So you dare to call me a pig of a man, you ladronzuela!”

“Prove it. Prove I am a ladronzuela!”

Mercado yawned and reminded them that it was late; that he and his colleague, Santana, were very tired; that he, Mercado, had a wife and eight children and many troubles; and would everybody, please, be friendly and cooperative? “Now, Señorita Gonzales, when you failed to rouse the señora, what did you do?”

“I telephoned down to the room clerk and he sent for the doctor. Dr. Lopez. He has an agreement with the hotel.”

“He has a contract,” Escamillo said. “Signed.”

Consuela shrugged. “Does it matter what you call it? When a doctor is necessary, it is always Dr. Lopez they send for. So he came. Immediately. Or very soon anyway. That is all I know.”

“You stayed with the señora until the doctor arrived?”

“Yes. She did not wake up.”

“Now, señorita, what do you know of a silver box?”

Consuela looked blank. “Silver box?”

“This one. See, it has blood on it and is badly dented where it struck the pavement. Have you ever seen this box before?”

“Never. I know nothing about it.”

“Very well. Thank you, señorita.”

Consuela rose gracefully and crossed the room, pausing for a moment in front of Escamillo’s desk. “I do not take insults. I quit.”

“You don’t quit. You’re fired.”

“I quit before I was fired. So ha!”

“I shall count every single towel,” Escamillo said. “Personally.”

“Cochino.”

Consuela snapped her fingers and went out, slamming the door firmly and finally behind her.

“You see?” Escamillo cried, beating the air with his fists. “How can I run a hotel with help like that? They are all the same. And now this terrible scandal. I am ruined, ruined, ruined. Policemen in my office! Reporters in my lobby! And the Embassy — Mother of Jesus, must the Embassy be brought into this, too?”

“We must, of course, inform the Embassy in such cases,” Mercado said.

“These crazy Americans, if they want to jump do they not have places to jump in their own country? Why must they come here and ruin an innocent man!”

Everyone agreed that it was most unfair, most sad, but God’s will, after all. No one could argue with God’s will, which was responsible for national and domestic disasters like earthquakes, unseasonable rains, temperamental plumbing, difficulties with the telephone exchange, as well as cases of sudden death.

It was comforting having someone to blame, and Escamillo was beginning to feel better when another point suddenly occurred to him. “What of the suite, 404? It is empty and yet it is not empty. I must charge for it or lose money. But I cannot charge if there is no one in it. And I cannot put anyone in it while the señoras’ belongings are still there. What must I do?”

“You must learn not to think so much of money,” Mercado said firmly and picked up the silver box and nodded to his colleague, Santana. “Come along. We will examine 404 once more and then lock it until the little señora recovers.”

The balcony doors had been left open but the suite still reeked of whiskey, from the carpet where it had spilled and from the bottle itself which Consuela had left uncorked on the bureau.

“It would be a shame,” Mercado said, reaching for the bottle, “to let this product stand here and evaporate.”

“But it is evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“That the señora was drunk.”

“We already know from the bartender that she was drunk. We must not accumulate too much evidence. It would only confuse matters. The case is, after all, quite simple. The señora was drinking much tequila and became depressed. Tequila is not for amateurs.”

“Why did she become depressed?”

“Unrequited love,” Mercado said without hesitation. “Americans make much of these things. It is in all their cinemas. Have a nip.”

“Thank you, friend.”

“One thing we can be sure of. It was not an accident. I thought at first, the señora, after drinking heavily, may have rushed out to the balcony to get some air, perhaps also to relieve her stomach. But this is not possible.”

“How is this not possible?”

“She would never, in such an emergency, stop to pick up the, silver box.” Mercado sighed. “No. She killed herself, poor lady. It is a sad thing to think of her wandering around in hell, is it not?”

Dawn was breaking through a gray drizzle.

“It rains,” Santana said.

“Good. It will wash off the sidewalk and drive the people home.”

“There are no more people. It is all over.”

“Amen,” Mercado said. “Still I wonder, along with Señor Escamillo, why did she jump from this particular spot with all the American places to choose from.”

“The Empire State Building.”

“Of course. And the Grand Canyon.”

“The Brooklyn Bridge.”

“Niagara Falls.”

“And others.”

“Many others.” Mercado closed the balcony doors and locked them. “Well, one must not argue with the will of God.”

“Amen.”