Lilia's Secret (9 page)

‘
Donde vas, bonita
?' he said, speaking in Spanish for the first time.

‘Back to my hotel. I can't sleep here.'

‘You don't have to sleep, do you?' He reached towards me.

‘Mmm …' I did a little dance with my head to indicate ‘sort of'.

He flicked the lamp on and sat up in bed. ‘What's the matter?' He'd switched back to English.

‘I'm feeling bad about Andrés.'

‘What? I thought you said he was a mistake?' He leant towards me again, grabbing my hand. ‘Listen, I'm serious about you. I've spoken to my parents and they've invited you to lunch on Sunday. You must come – the ranch is beautiful.'

I already knew about his ranch. He sounded like he was doing a sales pitch.

He shook my hand. ‘Where have you gone? Come back.'

I stopped staring at the carpet of night lights out the window. I looked at his lips.

‘I can't,' I said.

‘You said he was putting too much pressure on you. I won't put that kind of pressure on you.' He moved across the bed and held my chin. ‘Look at me. I'm serious …'

It didn't seem strange to me at all. I knew I'd been projecting the same impression until now. ‘Sorry,' I said. I scrunched up my face, trying to convey empathy, but also that there was nothing to be done about it.

‘Sorry? Just like that?' He shook his head. ‘You've got to be kidding, Madeline.' His hands came down on mine, imprisoning them again. I snatched mine away, cold inside. ‘I have to go.' I moved the blankets about looking for my bag. He smiled nastily and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Try not to waste your whole life pretending to fall in love with men you don't know.'

I stumbled against the door as I backed away. He wasn't Andrés. His mouth was cruel; how could I have kissed it?

When I got out of the hotel there was a kid dozing against the wall. She was standing next to a beggar asleep under a bundle of clothes, still passively petitioning. The kid roused herself when she heard me coming and thrust a box of chewing gum at me. I never eat it but I bought the whole lot, then left the box at the corner for her to pick up when I'd disappeared. I couldn't meet her dead, round eyes.

The next day I wanted to ring Matías to say sorry. But if I rang him, I'd open up the possibility of seeing him again, and I knew I might dive right back in. The terror was still inside me, you see.

Instead, I finally called Andrés' sisters, who lived on the other side of Mexico City. I knew their voices from short telephone conversations in which we'd shouted at each other down the line.

‘What a joy to hear your voice,' Gabriela would say.

‘It warms my heart that Andrés has found you,' Lupita would add.

I couldn't match their exuberant affection, but I'd done my best. Andrés had told me how fiercely they loved him, the baby of the family, and how they thought that no woman would be good enough for him. Now that I was to meet Gabriela and Lupita in the flesh, I was worried he was right. More than that, I was worried they'd notice I was a mess.

‘How was your trip to Taxco?' Gabriela asked, sitting across the table with hairsprayed bouffant hair and red lips.

I regretted telling Andrés that was why I hadn't contacted his sisters straight away. ‘Great,' I coughed through the haze of smoke they were creating. ‘I didn't see much though, just the inside of the hotel where the conference was.'

Gabriela exchanged glances with Lupita. ‘Sister, Andrés didn't mention any conference.'

‘It was work,' I said quickly.

Lupita was a red-haired version of Gabriela. They both wore beaded cardigans straining over their capacious busts and soft waists. Andrés was so passionate about them that I hadn't expected them to be so ordinary. I liked them though. I liked their easy way of laughing and interrupting each other. I liked that they asked me questions and didn't wait to be entertained. They wanted to know all the fine details of Andrés' life in Sydney with me – how many bedrooms in the apartment? What colour were the walls? What kind of food did we cook? They were very pleased to find that Andrés and I both cooked.

It was easy being with them. We talked about their
teenaged children, two each. Lupita had boys and Gabriela had girls. I asked them questions about Andrés as a boy, and laughed that he'd been so worried he'd be small all his life that he had saved up to buy one of those stretchy muscle-building things from a magazine. For three months he'd been religious about using it for twenty minutes, morning and evening, and then he'd abandoned it in disappointment.

I was blindsided by their next question, though I should have seen it coming.

‘And babies, sister?' Their round, ordinary faces shone at me eagerly.

I pushed back from the table in an effort to appear more relaxed than I felt.

‘One day …' I hoped the shine of my smile made up for the abstraction of my reply.

I swooped forwards. ‘Did Lilia really kill her husbands?'

Now it was their turn to sit back and try to look nonchalant, as they exchanged more glances, successfully distracted.

‘We don't know for sure. Everybody says she did,' Gabriela answered. ‘Andrés told us you'd ask.'

Funny that he'd known.

‘So we tried to find something for you,' Lupita said, fishing in her big black handbag and pulling out a photograph.

The woman in the photograph stared into my eyes. A shiver shot through me. I took the picture and squinted at it. It was black and white so I couldn't distinguish the difference between the colours of her eyes, but her hair was wound around the top of her head like a crown.

‘It is Lilia,' Lupita said.

I looked up at them. ‘She seems so … alive.'

‘Do you ever wonder if you might be a witch?' Gabriela asked me, sucking deeply on her cigarette, and fixing me with her eyes.

‘No,' I said, staring blankly back.

‘We do,' Gabriela said, laughing at me. ‘And you may be one, too.'

‘Only you don't know it yet,' tacked on Lupita.

My wrist itched like mad. I scratched it, then chased the itch down to the palm of my hand. It rarely got that far.

‘Not evil,' said Gabriela. ‘Just someone who feels more than they can see.' She patted my hand reassuringly. ‘It's a gift. Lilia had it too.'

‘So do you think she killed her husbands?' I asked again.

‘We're not sure.' Lupita said quietly. ‘Not all of them, anyway.'

‘Why not?' I asked, looking from one to the other.

They shifted in their seats. Lupita stubbed out her cigarette before it had reached the butt and shrugged.

‘Did you meet her?'

‘No.' They both shook their heads. ‘Our father never saw her again after he escaped when he was ten.'

‘Not even when she was dying,' added Gabriela. ‘He said he didn't want to darken the door of evil again.'

‘Did he tell you she killed her husbands?'

‘No. He never spoke of her,' said Gabriela.

‘Except, sister,' broke in Lupita, ‘every now and then when we wouldn't stop annoying him, he would tell us how he would sit for hours not talking in her presence, and how we should be more like him.'

‘It's her other son,
Tío
Juan,' said Gabriela. ‘He says it. You
don't say your mother is a murderess unless you're sure.'

‘He hates her,' said Lupita. ‘He'd say anything.'

‘He might have his reasons.' Gabriela patted her sister's hand. ‘But it's not just him, is it?' Gabriela spoke gently to Lupita as if I wasn't there. ‘You know this is what people believe about her.'

‘It all comes from him.'

‘And the fact that three of her five husbands died before their time.'

‘What makes you think she didn't?' I broke in.

Lupita crossed her arms on the table and glanced at Gabriela defiantly before she spoke.

‘It's not what we get from her,' she said.

‘From who?' I frowned.

‘From Lilia,' Lupita said. ‘We feel her and we don't feel evil.'

‘You feel her?' I repeated slowly.

‘I told you not to say anything yet,' Gabriela hissed at Lupita.

Lupita batted her objection away and leant towards me. ‘We feel great, great suffering, and we want your help.'

I shook my head. ‘I don't believe in ghosts.'

Lupita sat back and lit another cigarette.

‘Tell me why you're here?'

I scratched my wrist. ‘Um, just getting to know the family.'

‘I don't think so,' she said, with narrowed eyes. ‘I feel suffering around you too. What do you need from her?'

I put my hands over my face.

‘Leave her alone,' hissed Gabriela.

‘No,' Lupita said. ‘She's here. She can help.'

‘Help?' I asked, from behind my hands.

‘Find out if she killed them,' said Lupita.

I took my hands away. ‘Me?'

They nodded in unison as they blew out another cloud of smoke. It could have been funny.

‘Why?'

‘You're here.'

I shook my head, frowning. ‘Why not you?'

They sat back, relaxing. ‘It costs money to get on a bus,' Gabriela said.

‘And for the room we'd stay in,' Lupita added. ‘We need the money you and Andrés send us for cigarettes, not for trips to the other side of the country,' Gabriela chimed in, laughing as she lit another cigarette.

‘Anyway, the truth is harder to find when you want it to be one thing. We're too close to her,' Lupita said.

‘It happened decades ago. Does it matter now?'

Lupita looked at me quizzically. ‘It matters to you.' She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘The stories we tell ourselves about our lives eventually make their way into us and are passed on down the line unconsciously. If you must bear their burden, better they are the truth.'

I stared back.

‘Think of your children,' Gabriela added softly.

‘I'm not having children,' I insisted, throwing my arms up.

Gabriela shushed me and looked around for a waiter. ‘Cigarette?' she asked. ‘Coffee?'

‘No, I haven't taken either up since I walked in here, although you two have almost driven me to them.'

Lupita laughed. ‘It's like this,' she said. Gabriela sent her a warning look. Lupita laughed again and batted the look away. ‘My sister and I feel the weight of our grandmother.'

‘You talk to her?'

‘Nothing so simple,' murmured Gabriela. ‘We feel her, and it's driving us mad.'

‘That explains it then,' I deadpanned.

They chuckled.

We all sat back as the waiter re-filled their coffee cups. Gabriela got out her lipstick to re-apply more red.

‘But you don't have to do this for us. Do it for yourself,' Lupita said, smacking her lips together. ‘It's not rocket science,' she shrugged. ‘You're here without Andrés, asking questions about his grandmother who died twenty years ago. I'm guessing there's more you want to know about her.'

I opened my mouth.

She shook her head at me, holding my gaze. ‘No need. Don't say it.'

I smiled. I wouldn't have known what to say out loud anyway – I couldn't work out why I needed to know more about Lilia.

‘How much time have you got?' Gabriela asked.

‘As much as I want. I've just finished one project and I've got weeks of holiday owing.'

Gabriela looked at Lupita. ‘I think the place to start is with
Tío
Juan.'

‘Haven't you two spoken to him already?'

Lupita pulled down one side of her mouth. ‘That old snake won't talk to us.'

‘Go to Aguasecas,' continued Gabriela. ‘You must go to Aguasecas.'

Dry-Water – it's an odd name for a town, I thought.

‘They say it's an odd place,' muttered Lupita, picking up my thoughts.