“Look,” Licha said, pushing the button at the head of Felix’s bed. “It’s disconnected. And look here”—mimicking Felix’s violence, ripping aside the curtains and throwing open the windows. “This room is on the third floor. It’s the only one with bars at the windows. They keep it for special cases, for the nuts … oh, I’m sorry, the mentally ill patients.”
Licha removed a chiclet from her uniform pocket and stood for a moment, pensive. “I’ve got it,” she said suddenly. “The women come by at six to clean the rooms. They always leave the rubbish bins in the hall. I’m sure they throw the old newspapers in there.”
Again she lay down beside Felix, repeating over and over, “It was so good, who taught you that, no hands or anything, without touching me, just looking, honest to God, I never knew a man to come before just from seeing me naked, never. Who taught you? It makes me feel really good. I swear it makes me feel like something special.”
“You’re very sweet, and a very pretty girl,” said Felix, clearly enunciating the syllables, and Licha threw her arms around Felix’s neck, curled around him like a snake, and kissed his neck again and again.
About six-thirty she returned with a wrinkled, egg-stained copy of the noon edition of Últimas Noticias. Breathlessly, desperately, Felix scanned the headlines. Not a single reference to what he was looking for. Not a word about an attempt on the life of the President of the Republic, or its aftermath, no editorial comment, and nothing, less than nothing, about the fate of the presumed assassin Felix Maldonado. Nothing. Nothing!
He swallowed thickly, and desolately folded the newspaper. He remembered his conversation with Bernstein at Sanborns. The real political facts never appear in the Mexican press. But this was too much, absolutely incredible. No one could have such control of the press that they could prevent the printing of news of an attempt against the Chief of State in the Salón del Perdón in the National Palace of Mexico during an official ceremony before scores of witnesses, photographers, and television cameras.
His head was whirling. He could not believe his burning eyes. He wasn’t blind. He wasn’t delirious. Several times he checked the date of the newspaper. The ceremony in the Palace was on the tenth of August. The newspaper was dated the twelfth. No mistake, but there wasn’t the least reference to the events of scarcely three days ago. There had been only two previous attempts, one against Ortiz Rubio, and the other against Ávila Camacho, and those had been known, and reported. It wasn’t possible. Licha was watching him with alarm. She walked toward the bed.
“Now don’t get excited. I told you, it’s not good for you. Don’t try to get up. Wouldn’t it be better if I read something to you? I’ll read you the police reports; that’s always the best part of the paper.”
Felix lay back, exhausted. Licha began to read in a monotonous, halting voice, with a tendency to give an exotic pronunciation to words she didn’t recognize, charging at punctuation like a bull at a red cape, and bucking like a young mare before the obstacle of a diphthong. Fastidiously, she read the accounts of a rape, a burglary in the San Rafael district, an armed robbery at the Masaryk Branch of the Banco de Comercio, and then the details of a particularly gruesome crime: this morning, at daylight, at the Suites de Génova, a woman had been found brutally murdered, her throat cut.
The preceding evening the victim had requested the concierge to wake her at 6 a.m. to catch an early flight. Because of the request, the concierge, uneasy that the victim did not respond to his repeated calls, let himself into the room using his master key, and found the naked body on the bed, throat slit from ear to ear. Suicide was ruled out inasmuch as no sharp instrument was found anywhere near the deceased, although the officers in charge of the investigation do not exclude the possibility that the weapon was removed following a suicide by a person or persons of unknown motivation, to suggest a perfidious crime. The coroner fixed the time of death as sometime between midnight and one o’clock yesterday morning. An additional fact that casts doubt on the possibility of suicide is that the deceased had carefully packed all her clothes and personal belongings, clearly indicating her intent to carry out her announced trip. All that was found in the room occupied by the deceased were a half-used tube of toothpaste, a new box of sanitary napkins, and the furnishings belonging to the hotel, a television, a stereo, and a collection of 45 rpm records which, according to the concierge, are also the property of the management. An inspection of the contents of the suitcases has thrown no new light on the circumstances of death. The only personal documents found in the flight bag were a folder of traveler’s checks, a round-trip air ticket — Tel Aviv-Mexico City-Tel Aviv, the Tel Aviv-Mexico City portion already used, the return flight for today confirmed via Eastern to New York, and via El Al from the City of Steel to Rome and Tel Aviv. The deceased’s passport stated her to be of Israeli nationality; born in Heidelberg, Germany. Name: Sara Klein — although in this regard the Israeli Embassy, in the person of a Second Secretary questioned at an early hour by our reporter, wished to make no comment, and refused to confirm the identity of the victim …
Licha read concergee, Embassy, New Yorr, as Felix thought to himself: Sara wasn’t at my funeral. She was already dead. Everybody’s been lying to me. But he showed no reaction, and suppressed his emotion as well. He told himself he shouldn’t squander his feelings, not now, not for some time to come. He must save his grief for a single instant. When? The time would come. Sara Klein deserved that much. His love for Sara Klein deserved that much. A single, final act should consecrate his emotions at having known her, lost her, and found her again for one night in the home of the Rossettis, before losing her forever.
Neither did he want to conjecture about the reasons for or the circumstances of the death of the Jewish girl he’d taken dancing one night in some nightclub in vogue at the time. Where had they gone? Yes, the Versalles, in the Hotel del Prado. They’d danced in celebration of Felix Maldonado’s twentieth birthday. The orchestra had played “Mack the Knife,” the ballad that Louis Armstrong’s recording had made popular again.
He asked Licha to help him escape from the hospital. She said it would be very difficult. She looked at him suspiciously, as if afraid that Felix already wanted to get rid of her. But she put the idea aside, and again said it would be difficult. “Besides, what about me? Ayub will never forgive me, and he scares me to death.”
“Don’t you think I’m capable of protecting you against that little shrimp?” asked Felix, kissing Licha’s cheek.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and stroked Felix’s hand.
“How can I get out of here, Lichita?”
“There’s no way, I swear. I tell you it’s a real exclusive place. They have guards at all the doors.”
“Where are my clothes?”
“They took them away.”
“Are there elevators?”
“Yes. Two. One holds three people, and there’s a bigger one for stretchers and wheelchairs.”
“Are they self-service?”
“No. They have some pretty tough guys running them.”
“Is there a dumbwaiter?”
“Yes. For all three floors. The kitchen’s on the ground floor.”