‘I’m standing on the street the other night,’ she said, ‘and I meet a guy. He’s had a few drinks, now he wants a good time. So he comes back to my place. Then it turns out he’s got to fucking climb a ladder before he can screw me.’ The heat of her anger pushed Wilson back a step. ‘If you laugh,’ she said, ‘I’ll fucking kill you.’
He did not even smile.
‘The guy takes one look at the ladder and says no way. He won’t even do it up against the wall. One look at that ladder and he’s gone off the whole idea. You,’ and she poked him in the chest with two fingers, ‘have ruined my business.’
‘I’ve ruined mine too.’
He looked past her shoulder. The sun balanced on the horizon, seemingly uncertain of its course. Its gold light coated everything — innocent, deceptive. It told lies about the sea, the trees in the back yard, the saucepan on the ground; it told tall tales about their value. He reached up with one hand and rubbed his eyes. There was a smell coming from somewhere, a smell that was like eggs cooking in a pool of rancid fat.
‘I’ll make it up to you,’ he said. ‘As soon as my foot’s better, I’ll make it up to you. That’s a promise.’
She did not speak. She just aimed this look of bitterness at him from out of her narrow eyes, from out of the sweet spun-sugar of her dress.
He turned away from her and limped towards his table.
‘It’s no good thinking you can run away,’ she shouted after him.
‘I’m not running,’ he said. ‘Look at me.’
She had only been gone a few minutes when a voice called from behind the pale-blue shutters of the cantina.
‘Somebody out there?’
‘It’s Señor Wilson. I’ve come for my breakfast.’
The shutters burst open, bounced back off the wall. Some pieces of plaster landed on the ground below the window. Mama Vum Buá peered out, her eyelids bloated with sleep.
‘You’re late this morning,’ Wilson said.
‘If you’re going to be funny you can go up the road.’
He grinned. Up the road was an eating-shack called La Concha. You only had to step through the beaded curtain to feel the first twinges of dysentery.
The Señora appeared in the doorway, wearing her usual dress, the one that used to be yellow and red. She summoned a sound from deep in her throat, a sound commonly associated with geese, and sent her spit soaring clear across the yard. He heard it land in the peaceful water of the harbour. Turning her face towards the sun, she began to scratch her arms. Her blunt toes kneaded the dust.
‘That church,’ he said, ‘remember?’
‘I remember.’
‘You know why we couldn’t see it?’
Mama Vum Buá drew her shoulders up towards her ears. Her mouth curved downwards. She kept her eyes imperiously shut.
‘It’s in pieces,’ he said, ‘that’s why.’
‘What happened? Somebody break it?’
He laughed. ‘Nobody broke it. It’s supposed to be in pieces. It has to be assembled.’
‘Ah.’
‘A very famous man designed it, apparently.’
Her eyes were open now, and slanting at him, across her cheeks. ‘Who?’
‘His name’s Eiffel.’
The same downward curve of the mouth. ‘Never heard of him.’
‘He built the Eiffel Tower.’
‘The Eiffel Tower? What’s that?’
‘It’s the tallest building in the world.’
Her eyes moved lazily out towards the horizon. ‘I can’t see it,’ she said. ‘Can’t be that tall.’
Wilson could not keep from smiling.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘I’d like some of those eggs of yours, Señora, if you please.’
But she was staring at him, suspicion drawing her eyebrows down towards the bridge of her nose. ‘Something’s funny. You wouldn’t be laughing if something wasn’t funny.’
‘And coffee,’ Wilson said, still smiling. ‘Plenty of that good coffee.’
Chapter 9
‘It is an honour and a privilege, not to mention a relief,’ Monsieur de Romblay began, ‘a relief,’ he continued, lifting his voice above the laughter, ‘to be able finally to welcome into our midst Monsieur and Madame Valence who are here as representatives of one of the most prestigious construction companies in France, if not the world, the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel — ’
Suzanne felt her attention begin to wander. Her eyes drifted away from the Director and out across the table — the glinting clutter of silver and glass, the red flowers arching out of their wide bowl, the tallow candles releasing the occasional twist of black smoke into the atmosphere. Gathered round her in the dining-room was the cream of Santa Sofía society: Eugène and Léonie de Romblay, the hosts; Émile Bardou and his wife, Florestine; Marie Saint-Lô, his assistant at the hospital; François Pineau, the accountant; Pierre Morlaix, the safety engineer; Jean-Baptiste Castagnet, who was in charge of timbering and lumber; and, lastly, Captain Félix Montoya, commander of the military garrison. The men were dressed in black coats and white cravats, the sole exception being the Mexican, who had appeared in a scarlet tunic with silver epaulettes and a broad felt hat which was now recumbent on a chair, its plumes shifting in the down-draught from the electric ceiling fan. The women wore evening gowns of silk and taffeta. Marie Saint-Lô had decided on emerald-green, which complemented her pale skin and her brown hair — though, by leaving her neck and shoulders bare, the dress accentuated her stocky, somewhat earthbound figure. Madame de Romblay had chosen a particularly unambiguous cerise. The doctor’s wife had settled for dove-grey. All three had adorned their hair and their décolletages with sprigs of jasmine and cactus blossom, and scent-vials glittered in their gloved hands. Suzanne was wearing mousseline de soie in lettuce-green, trimmed with pompon roses, and pale-shrimp suede gloves to the elbow, and, looking round the table, she did not feel that she was overdressed.
They were nearing the end of a dinner that had been a revelation. An hors-d’oeuvre of spiced bouillabaisse was followed by fillets of yellowtail and barracuda, caught in the waters off the island of San Marcos. For the entrée Madame de Romblay offered a choice of quail or pigeon, both trapped locally by Yaqui Indians. With the fish she served a chilled Chablis, with the fowl, a Bordeaux. (It transpired that, unknown to Théo, both wines had travelled in the hold of the SS Korrigan, along with the town’s new church.) Dessert consisted of segments of Mulege orange preserved in pomegranate brandy and, for the more enterprising, a bowl of pitahaya, the fruit of the organ-pipe cactus, whose spiny, ash-green skin could be peeled away to expose a deep red meat which tasted, Suzanne thought, like strawberries that were almost, but not quite, ripe. With dessert Madame de Romblay suggested a garnet wine from San Ignacio. It had been produced by Jesuits, she claimed, and was one of the few aspects of Jesuit teaching in which the Indians had shown any interest. It closely resembled port, both in its colour and its flavour, and was, in fact, most palatable. Théo had already drunk three glasses.
Suddenly the table rocked with laughter and Suzanne looked up. Théo was turning to her with a smile of resignation on his face. It appeared that Monsieur de Romblay was approaching his finale.
‘— late as a Valence. And if someone’s very late, say about two months,’ gusts of laughter were now sweeping the room and powder rose in clouds from the shoulders of the women, ‘then you might say, “That was a real Valence.” For many of the local people, as we all know, the Valence is a way of life. Perhaps,’ and now the Director himself could not keep from joining in the hilarity, ‘perhaps it’s a blessing, no, more than that, a stroke of genius, that they will now be working with the original exponent of the Valence, none other than Monsieur Valence himself.’