Late in November, his interest seemed to dissipate. Prison rumor had it that his wife, a formidable battle-ax named Margarita, had learned of his post-meridiem activities and had called an abrupt halt to them by threatening to have her brother teach him the meaning of honor. Margarita's brother, or so the prison grapevine maintained, was a prize fighter who had recently won a huge purse in Mexico City, or Acapulco, or perhaps Tampico—the grapevine was often vague. But whatever the reason, the daily summonings ceased, and by the end of the month, Marilyn was convinced she had heard the last of Dominguez.
And then one day, the knock came on the thick wooden door, and she heard Luis calling for the Golden Arab, heard the word "Alcaide!" and exchanged a frightened glance with Teresa.
The weather had turned uncommonly cold and damp. There was no heat in the cell block, and only the matrons enjoyed the comfort of a coal brazier set up in the stone corridor open to the wind that raged in off the hills. "Ponte el vestido de novia," Luis told her, and she took the caftan from where it was folded under the mattress, and removed first the threadbare overcoat she had purchased with the last of her keestered money, and then her grey smock and cotton panties, and quickly slipped the caftan over her head, and put on the coat again. Squatting, she inserted the diaphragm while Luis watched from the corridor outside. "Puerco de mierda!" she yelled at him, and he laughed. Before she left the cell, Teresa took her hands between both her own, and whispered, "Coraje"—Courage.
The men called to her as she crossed the windy courtyard.
"Hola, Arabe!"
"Quieras acostarti con migo, Arabe?"
"Mira, Arabe! Mira mi pijal"
This time, there was a stranger in the office with Dominguez.
He was perhaps forty years old, a horse-faced man wearing the uniform of a prison guard. He was smiling somewhat foolishly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, occasionally stroking the sparse mustache under his bulbous nose.
"Mariucha," Dominguez said, smiling, "I would like you to meet Senor Perez. He has expressed an interest in you."
She said nothing. She stood just inside the door Luis had again locked from the outside. The barred window across the room was shuttered. She waited.
"Senor Perez and I have made an arrangement," Dominguez said.
"What arrangement?" she asked at once.
"A satisfactory arrangement, do not worry."
"What arrangement?" she asked again. She was beginning to tremble. She thrust her hands into the pockets of the coat, hoping they would not see that she was trembling.
"Take off your coat," Dominguez said. "Raise your gown."
"No," she said. "Ask Luis to unlock the door, please." Her voice was shaking. "I wish to go back to the cell."
"Your wishes are of no concern to me," Dominguez said. "Senor Perez is willing to pay for your company, now let the man see what he is buying! Do as I tell you!"
"No," she said, and took her hands from her pockets, the fists clenched.
Dominguez was already coming around the desk, slapping the riding crop against the open palm of his hand.
"Keep away from me, you son of a bitch," she said in English. "I'll kill you," she said, "Te maturé!" she said, hurling the threat in Spanish, her eyes searching the room for something she could use to smash his face.
He lashed out at her with the whip, and when she tried to grab it from his hands, he pulled it back and struck her again, and then kept striking her while the grinning guard looked on, battered her to her knees, and then to the floor, and forced her kicking onto her back. She fought him as he tried to unbutton the coat, clutched his hand by the wrist and bit the fleshy part of his palm near the pinky, fought the whip and then the punches he threw at her breasts and her face.
Her nose began bleeding, she was certain he had broken her nose, but she fought him still, fought him till there was no strength left in her, and even then she tried to roll away from him as he clawed at her buttons, straddling her. She spit into his face, and then shrieked as he slapped her with his open hand, continued slapping her, back and forth, the square hard hand incessant, blood spattering in a fine red mist as he hit her backhanded, forehanded, slapped her into near insensibility, and still she struggled. And finally he ripped the buttons off the coat, and forced the coat open, and pulled the caftan above her waist, her back arched, kicking, twisting, still trying to free herself from him. In a frenzy, swearing, he whipped her across her naked thighs until they were bleeding, and then he moved away from where she lay sobbing and trembling and broken on the stone floor, and said to Perez, "Lleva la puta!"—Take the whore!
The next time he sent for her, Marilyn was carrying in her coat pocket the razor-honed spoon Teresa had purchased from the kitchen entrepreneur. There was a new man in Dominguez's office this time, a squat and burly brute, also wearing the uniform of a prison guard. A knife scar ran across one of his bushy eyebrows. He studied her appraisingly as she came into the office. In the righthand pocket of the coat, her hand was curled around the sharpened spoon.
"Show him," Dominguez said.
She shook her head.
Smiling, Dominguez came around the desk, the riding crop in his hand.
"Another taste, yes?" he said, and raised the crop and saw the glittering metal clutched in her fist an instant before she stabbed at him.
He turned sideways to avoid the blow aimed at his heart, caught the blade on the flesh of his biceps instead, and backed away from her in terror as she came at him once again, her blue eyes slitted, her lips skinned back over her teeth. The other man sidestepped gingerly around her and behind her. With both hands clenched together, he swung them at the back of her neck. She stumbled forward with the force of the blow, and then turned on him with the spoon still clenched in her fist. He swung his interlocked hands as though wielding an imaginary baseball bat, and this time the blow caught her on the temple, and she staggered, she, the room, the spoon fell clattering to the stone floor, she dropped dizzily to her knees, and the whip lashed at her back, Dominguez shouting invective and striking her again and again until the guard took gentle hold of his arm and whispered that the Arab was unconscious.
She regained consciousness hours later in what the prisoners called "El Pozo," a dark dungeon set into the stone floor and covered with a barred grate, a three-foot cubicle in which it was impossible to stretch full-length, impossible to sit upright, impossible even to curl into a fetal position on one's side. She crouched there naked, her lips swollen and crusted with blood, shivering in the cold evening air, crying out in rage to whoever might hear, shouting for the American consul, screaming for justice. She was continent for as long as she could bear it, and then she soiled the narrow space, and became ill on the stench of her own filth, and vomited up the food she had eaten the day before. No one came to feed her. No one brought her water. She crouched on the cold stone floor, her back aching, her limbs beginning to stiffen, her mouth throbbing with pain.
She called to the matrons, who did not answer.
She shouted for Teresa until she was hoarse, but though Teresa could hear her from the cell block, they would not allow her to go to the sunken cage.
Sobbing, she called upon the President of the United States to please intercede on her behalf.
She beseeched the Pope, remembering all the prayers she had learned at St. Ignatius, reciting them aloud and then begging His Holiness to come here to the prison to see for himself the injustice being done.