Lilia's Secret (7 page)

A mushroom cloud of metallic balloons appeared above the trees. Nearby a small girl jumped up and down, her long black braids bouncing on her back. She was shouting the same thing over and over. A man grabbed her from behind and swung her in a high arc. When he set her down he gave her some coins and she raced off to the balloon seller, where she considered the balloons with her finger in her mouth. Bill wanted to tell her that it didn't matter which balloon she chose, it would come to nothing anyway. He looked away.

His father would have sat in this very square, maybe right here on this bench. Bill wanted to get up and run, and end up somewhere safe, such as his office back in Boston. He clutched his daypack to his chest fiercely and hunkered over.

‘Selfish rich brat,' he muttered under his breath, cursing Gerardo, who hadn't thought to leave him in an air-conditioned restaurant. Gerardo finally returned with five boys in tow.

‘Tourists aren't welcome here,' he told Bill.

‘I'm no tourist,' Bill replied. ‘My father lived and died here, remember? I have a right to be here.' Then he smiled.

‘I don't think that would be a commonly held view, Mr Bixton,' Gerardo said, without returning the smile.

Bill grunted. In the old days back in Boston – already they were the old days – he would have put Gerardo in his place. But money was a funny thing without power. He was paying Gerardo but Gerardo didn't need the job.

‘I've found you a room not far from here. It is perfectly comfortable for someone of your needs,' Gerardo went on.

Bill grunted again.

‘I'll be staying nearby,' Gerardo added.

The boys heaved the suitcases on to their shoulders and they marched off in a snaking line, making too much of a spectacle, to Bill's thinking. He hoped they'd stop in front of one of the bigger whitewashed houses with a balcony. But their destination was small and opened directly on to the street. The owner stood on the middle of the three front steps. As the procession advanced she stepped down on to the dusty road. A long braid hung down her back and wisps of grey framed her face. She had a young face though – she couldn't have been older than late thirties.

She nodded at Bill, smiling, and said a string of things which Gerardo didn't translate. Bill smiled and nodded back. He had to strain to keep smiling when he saw the small square box that was to be his room. There was a double bed, which seemed tiny compared to what he was used to; a dark wardrobe that dominated the room, and a small round table, a chair, and a slim chest of drawers with a mirror were crammed against the wall.

Maybe, Bill thought, he should have paid a detective after all, or at least admitted he had money. He beamed at the woman, Teresa, and asked Gerardo to tell her what a wonderful room it was. Her face split into a smile and she patted Bill's shoulder.

‘You are very welcome,' Gerardo translated. ‘We don't get strangers here in Aguasecas.'

Teresa smiled one last time and then shooed the others out, leaving him alone. He closed the door and flung back the window shutters. In an instant, sunlight was burning the inside of the room. Bill leant out of the window and looked along the street. Everything was still, all the other shutters were closed. The flowers in the window boxes wilted, bearing the weight of the heat.

He closed the shutters and switched on the light. He heaved one suitcase on to the bed, which sagged a little under the weight, laid underwear and socks in one drawer and squashed T-shirts and shorts into another. There was no room for his sweaters and long pants so he stacked them in the wardrobe. He put his suitcases inside each other and hid them under the bed. He liked the quiet this order brought him.

He threw a scratchy, colourless towel that had been folded
at the end of his bed over his shoulder and made his way down the corridor to the bathroom. There he had to lay his things across the toilet seat because there was nowhere else to put them. He picked up the bar of soap and weighed it in his hand: it was square and rough, but it smelt like palm trees.

Despite Gerardo's arrogance, despite the cheap polyester sheets, despite his exhaustion, he felt more alive than he had since he'd retired.

Back in his room with the door locked he flopped down on to the bed. His blubber lolled comfortably around him. In this moment, in this house, in this country, he felt light and he felt good. A hazy, smiley drift took him down into sleep.

The space between Bill and Gerardo across the table seemed to go on and on. Gerardo didn't even look up as he ate his beans and
mole
sauce. ‘Not bad,' he pronounced, mopping up the last bit of sauce with a scrap of tortilla.

Bill didn't even grunt.

‘The priest we need to speak to is out of town,' Gerardo said. ‘Of course, here in Mexico the priests know everything, so he would have been the best place to start, but that is not possible. I will make inquiries on your behalf about your father. You stay here.'

‘Hold on just a minute. Shouldn't we have a plan?' Bill asked.

Gerardo arched an eyebrow. ‘This is the plan, Mr Bixton. We'll start here, in the local café, where there is a form of artificial intimacy because we all share the one space, undertaking
the same activity, albeit not with each other. Where people are sated from taking their fill of food, and perhaps even more relaxed after a tequila or two. Does that meet your approval?'

Bill pursed his lips. Gerardo's disdain for him was clear, which made it all the harder to stomach. He nodded.

He watched Gerardo as he went from table to table in the café. He was doing it all wrong. There should have been a round of tequila first, then talk of soccer, and children and Mexico. Gerardo hardly even bent over. Bill did his best by nodding and smiling whenever anybody looked his way. He stood up to join Gerardo but faltered at his raised palm and, blushing, sank back into his chair.

He ordered another coffee, feeling impatient. He was a man of action – waiting on somebody else's action went against the grain.

Finally Gerardo slid into the seat opposite him. ‘Apparently nobody knows anything about your father,' he reported.

‘What about the woman he married?'

‘She has been dead twenty years and they say they don't remember much about her.'

‘But they must.' Bill snorted. ‘Twenty years is nothing. Some of these people are old enough to remember. You just didn't smile enough.'

‘With all due respect,' Gerardo replied. ‘I understand these people better than you.'

There was further failure on the second day of inquiry. Gerardo asked in the market place, in the square and at the school. He reported that people shook their heads openly at the mention of Bill's father's name, and with less enthusiasm when he asked about Doña Lilia de Las Flores. He reported
that he wasn't sure how to interpret this. Bill stared at him, feeling a small knot of anxiety growing in his chest again.

The calm he'd found when he first settled in his dark square room was melting away. He realised he'd imagined that he'd get what he needed a lot more easily than this. He wasn't sure what to do and the not-knowing was undoing him.

‘Today, we're going to the municipal office to see if we can find your father's name in the births and deaths records,' Gerardo announced to Bill when they met on the morning of the third day.

‘Municipal office?' Bill asked loudly. ‘Why didn't you mention that before?'

‘It's a last resort, Mr Bixton. These offices here aren't quite the same as those in the United States. We are at the last resort.' Gerardo started down the road.

Bill bit back a reply and followed.

The smooth-faced boy behind the counter at the municipal office smiled broadly at them. He couldn't have been more than seventeen.

After a string of gentle Spanish sentences from Gerardo the boy disappeared. He came back with a sheaf of documents. Bill leant over the counter and pumped the boy's hand. ‘
Gracias, gracias
,' he said. The boy grinned and pumped his hand back enthusiastically. Gerardo raised his eyebrows and led Bill outside.

‘These are just forms, Mr Bixton.'

‘What?'

‘Forms! You know, the type you fill out.' Gerardo could have been talking to a child.

‘Forms for what?' Bill enunciated each word just as carefully for Gerardo.

‘He says we can't look at the records until we fill these out.'

‘Let's do it then.' Bill was used to being decisive.

‘I don't carry four types of identification with me. Do you, Bill?'

‘What is it with these people?' Bill turned and tried to push back into the office, but Gerardo blocked him. ‘Whoever heard of needing four types of identification just to fill out forms to get access to public records?'

‘Your impatience doesn't help,' Gerardo replied calmly.

‘Your cold, distant manner doesn't help either. Who'd want to talk to you? You look down your nose at people.'

‘My attitude is irrelevant,' Gerardo shot back. ‘This town is closed to outsiders.'

‘Says you!' Bill's temples throbbed.

‘Says me and the rest of Mexico. These people have a long history of distrust.'

‘Why?'

‘Aguasecas was the most active town in this area during the revolution,' Gerardo said in the same even tone. ‘It's used to being spied on and its people are used to protecting each other. Long after the revolution there were secret police everywhere. Keeping your mouth shut was a matter of life and death here.'

‘But that was a long time ago.'

‘A mere eighty years. When the revolution officially finished in 1921, sporadic fighting continued in parts for another ten years. And whenever there's dissent in Mexico,
Aguasecas and many towns like it, as small as they are, come under suspicion.' Bill hadn't even known there was a revolution in Mexico. Gerardo didn't look at him as he spoke, which made Bill even madder. He wanted to click his fingers in front of Gerardo's face.

‘There've been many powerful backers of the poor in this region, which means the people here are anti-government,' Gerardo continued. ‘The spirit of the revolution continues. A well-regarded journalist born in Aguasecas disappeared in Mexico City five years back.'

Bill wasn't here to learn about the revolution. He stared at Gerardo's smoothly shaven face, swung around and walked away.

After siesta the next day Bill met with Gerardo again. Gerardo was at the café first. He sat in his perfectly pressed white business shirt reading a newspaper, his back straight. Bill made his way to Gerardo's table and sat down.

‘Did you get those forms in?' he asked.

‘Of course. Here are your documents.' He slid Bill's passport and other papers across the table.

‘News then?'

‘No, nothing in the records about your father. No death certificate, no funeral notice, nothing.'

Bill's shoulders slumped.

‘We were unlikely to succeed,' Gerardo went on. ‘Municipal offices don't always keep records. People usually keep their own here or give them to the church.' He paused and a shadow of a
smile passed across his face. ‘But the boy at the office did give me a good lead. There's a cemetery just west of town. We can walk there. It's the law that every grave has a name, even suicides. So if your father did die here, he'd be there.'