Dancing with the Tiger (17 page)

The old woman was not hard to find. Black dress, black head scarf, she rattled the chain link with clutched hands. The yard was a dump. Garbage. A pig passed out in cornhusks. Hugo tied on his mask. When he opened the metal gate, the woman rushed toward him.
“Que Dios te bendiga y te guarde.”
May God bless you and keep you.

“Where is the mask?”

He watched a lie form on her lips. “What mask?”

He shook her shoulders. Her frailness disgusted him. She was half dead already.

“No games, old woman. Your little Pedro stole a mask from me. From Reyes.”

The woman swore, fire in her eyes. “He was a good boy.”

“The mask, woman.”

“You're too late,” she spat. “It was cursed. I wash my hands of it. You killed my boy.
Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores . . .”

The Tiger stormed through her shack, the chicken coop, the outhouse. He slashed shrubs with his machete. He was tired of looking in vain.

Finding nothing, he shook the old witch. “I ask you for the last time. Where is the mask?”

“I sold it to an American.”

“What American?”

“The one who stays with young Flores.” Her dog wandered over and she pulled its long ears. “He was an innocent boy who made a mistake. A boy who needed his mother. I got rid of it right away. He didn't have to tell me. I knew.”

The Tiger couldn't listen anymore. He pushed her hard, away from him, and the old woman tumbled backward. Her head slammed against the chicken coop and she collapsed without a word, limbs splayed like a broken kite. The Tiger knelt. With a surge of tenderness, he pressed his palm to her forehead.
Come back, old woman. I am not as bad as I seem.
And he thought,
I should get a doctor,
but he did not move.

He watched her die. She died as he watched her.

He put a finger under her nose, waiting, to be sure. The stink of pig and lye was overwhelmed by his own stench. The dog whimpered, dug its snout under his mistress's hip. A crow crossed the sky.

He got up, built a fire.

The Aztecs cremated the dead to speed their journey to the afterlife. He owed the old woman this much. A week before, he would have recoiled from this task, but now he felt neither fear nor revulsion. When the fire caught, he dragged her body into the flames. She weighed
nothing. Her black dress parachuted in the updraft. He watched the crone's spirit rise. Her wailing voice wrapped around him like a shroud.
My beloved sons, we are all going to die.

—

That night,
Hugo dreamt he was an Aztec executioner working in the Temple of Fire. Blood tasted rich in his mouth, and his arms ached from lifting his flint. A storm blew in. Wind bent the trees. In a cataclysmic flash, a silent lightning bolt struck the temple. The great building shook and leapt into flames. In the fire, of the fire, he cried out for God.

Hugo jolted awake, his shirt damp with sweat. Soledad had not woken. Wired, he went to the kitchen, opened his Aztec history book.
The fall of the Aztec Empire and the death of Montezuma were foretold by eight omens.

An Aztec fisherman harvesting a crane with a mirror on its forehead.

His heart quickened. In his dream the night after Reyes gave him the tiger mask, he had seen a fisherman holding a crane.

A comet shaped like an ear of corn scattering sparks over the city.

A wailing woman.

A noiseless lightning bolt destroying a temple.

Fear nipped his chest. He'd seen a corn-shaped comet at Carnival. The crone had wailed into the wind. In his dream tonight, a silent thunderhead had destroyed the Temple of Fire. The next four were unfamiliar.

A boiling lake.

A comet in the night sky.

A two-headed creature.

A burning temple.

Hugo glared at the kettle, the oven. Every object seemed capable of treason.
I am having visions. I am losing my mind.

He walked outside, threw himself on the damp grass, stared at the stars, a thousand nicks of light stinging the sky. For months, he'd thought of nothing but the papershop girl, but now he was confronting a new kind of danger. Four omens. Four more before the empire fell. But what empire? Was the price of his sins that he would go mad? Were the spirits demanding the death mask's return? He wanted to ask Soledad, but he was alone with these visions, his sickness, forced to follow the mask wherever it led him. Staring into the night sky, Hugo made two fists and waited for the next missive from the dead.

“
Santísima Virgen, es tarde otra vez,
but I cannot sleep. Hugo says we will leave soon for the North. I don't want to go. The place I dream of living is Real de Catorce. Real is a holy city, a ghost town. The Huichol say ancient spirits live in the hills, and they eat peyote and walk into the desert with their offerings. Catholics go on pilgrimage to the parish church to worship San Francisco de Asís, the miraculous El Charrito, who cures the sick and maimed. The mountain air is so pure it cleans your insides in a single day. Though I was only eight the summer we went, I remember the beauty of the land. We climbed up from the town into the ruins, and I could imagine how men once mined for silver, how the elegant city once bustled with shopkeepers and craftsmen. All that is left now are crumbling walls, and spirits who refuse to leave. We children sat inside the remains of a stone house, just walls, no roof. Concha said it was
three hundred years old. I lay back in the grass and the sky was stained-glass blue and the tuna flowers hung like pink earrings on the prickly pears and a tree shaped like a woman shook in the wind.

“Those mountains felt like heaven, and every fallen candy wrapper was a jewel from a queen's crown. All summer I collected trash to make collages. Princesses and dragons. At the end of the summer, my mother threw my art away, saying we couldn't take it with us, and I cried and rescued my artwork and brought it to you.
Mamá
got mad—
hija
, you can't bring trash to the Virgin—but I knew you would like it. Do you remember? Saints must have memories that go on forever.

“One more thing. (Are you still listening?) In Real de Catorce, we saw crosses everywhere. The cactus grew into crosses and the trees looked like crosses and the electric wires were crossed and we children spun in the mountains, arms wide, until everything got blurry and we fell down in the sun. Beautiful, spinning children in the shape of crosses. Can you see us, beloved Virgin? I am still that girl.

“Now I want a child of my own. (I am trying to be patient.) If I have a girl, I will name her Azura to remind me how it felt to stand on the mountaintop of Real de Catorce and hear the goat bells ringing like Sunday morning, and how I scoured the ground for beautiful trash, a bottle cap or a yellow candy wrapper caught in the thorns, waiting for someone to save it.”

She liked her new bedroom in Veracruz with her Romeo Santos poster and chartreuse beanbag chair. At night, a towering eucalyptus tree stood guard out her window. In the morning, the sun lit her Betty Boop bedspread. The girl had no friends at school. She had arrived midyear and cliques had already formed. Girls who were friends traded charms from their bracelets, shared spearmint gum, slept at one another's houses on weekends, gossiping about sex.

During class, boys stared at her chest, but she refused to slouch. Let them imagine all they were missing. She wore lace gloves and tight jeans, and on special days, a yellow dress. At lunch, she ate alone, and her math teacher, Señora Barreto, nodded at her encouragingly, but the girl pretended not to see or understand this kindness.

Each day after school, she straightened her room, stacked her
sweaters by color, aligned brush and comb. Before the move, her mother had begged her to throw out her stuffed animals, but she refused, so ducks, platypuses, and puppies sat next to her algebra book and tampons and the Bible she never opened. She missed Hugo. She did not love him, but she missed his attention. His desire pleased her. If he wanted her enough, he would do her bidding. He had promised to come in thirty days. She would marry him if he bought her a ring.

At dinner one night, her parents argued over money. There was something foul in the air, the stink of resentment. Her mother served chicken soup. Her father ate in his undershirt. His left hand never left his beer. Her mother said:
Why must you spend so much money at the dry cleaner's? Wear your shirts twice. Hang them up and they won't wrinkle. I wear mine three times and wash them by hand, and you throw money away.
Her father said,
A man must look professional or he will not appear trustworthy.
Her mother said,
It is vanity.
Her father said,
You should have the same pride in your appearance.

The papershop girl carried her plate to the kitchen and left it in the sink underwater. She went to her room, lay down, stared at the ceiling panels covering pipes. When the knock came, she scurried to the edge of the bed, placed her bare feet on the tiles, careful not to touch the cracks. Her father closed the door, sat next to her, pant leg brushing her thigh. His cologne smelled like oranges dipped in chocolate. Her comforter wrinkled under his weight. He placed his hand on her leg. Her skin paled under his grasp. She trembled. His face looked like that of a man who was sleepwalking, awake but not seeing, and he whispered: “My little girl. How beautiful you are.”

Inside the cloistered home of Lorenzo Gonzáles, Anna felt miles away from the bustling streets of Oaxaca, the ATMs and tour buses, the commerce of jicama and mangoes. She had hoped the dealer would pronounce his verdict right away, but instead he delivered a windy lecture about the repatriation of antiquities, how “source countries,” like Italy, Greece, and Turkey, were increasingly willing to challenge the predatory practices of “collecting countries,” those with the money and desire to expand museum collections. With all the lawsuits, the major museums were exporting more art than they acquired. Gonzáles made his disdain clear, characterizing the efforts of source countries to recoup lost art as thinly disguised nationalism.

“Maybe Greek museums should only show Greek art?” He gave a large shrug. “Maybe the Metropolitan Museum should give away its whole collection and limit itself to Native American art? Does the
international art market encourage looting? Maybe, but there has been looting ever since man invented the shovel. Mexico has eleven thousand archaeological sites. Guard them all? Good luck.”

The telecom tycoon Carlos Slim was his hero. “Richest man in the world. Worth seventy-four billion. Builds his own museum, the Soumaya, named after his wife. Sure, he's got Orozco, Tamayo, but he buys van Gogh, Matisse, the biggest collection of Rodin sculptures outside France. Why European art? Because most Mexicans cannot afford to go to Europe.
So he brings the art to them.
” Gonzáles shook his head, impressed. “And what does he get for his efforts? The press rides him like a donkey. Call his collection second-rate. They hate the building. Too shiny.
Naco.
They are so envious they can only spit.”

Anna kept her eye on the death mask. She didn't like seeing it on his desk.

Gonzáles picked up a newspaper, batted it with his middle finger. “Another museum was robbed. San Luis Potosí. No alarms. Three Diego Riveras removed. One oil. Two watercolors. The night guard disappeared as well.”

“That's terrible—

“And now this mask shows up, out of the blue. That's the expression, right?” Anna nodded. “It has long been rumored a funerary mask was made for Montezuma the Second the day he took power.” His voice dropped. “If authentic, this mask would represent a stunning archaeological discovery. . . . You could sell it to Carlos Slim for the entranceway of the Soumaya. He could put it next to
The Thinker
.”

Adrenaline washed through Anna's insides, dangerous, sickening. It was time for something to go right.

Gonzáles beamed. “But unfortunately, I'm afraid, your mask is not that treasure.”

His words slapped Anna's face.

“It is not a bad little reproduction.” He chuckled. “Actually quite clever.” His pencil pointed. “See the flatness of the nose, the earplugs. This line of red stones represents bloodletting—all signs of royalty. These bumps are cabochons. Nice touch. But with a legitimate pre-Columbian relic, the stones and glue would be older, the cedar wood more decayed. Look at the holes. Too small and even. This mask could fool amateurs, maybe a few collectors. I'll buy it to show my archaeology students. See if they lose their heads when confronted with the possibility of glory.”

“Are you sure?”

He fished a five-hundred-peso note from this wallet, held it out. “Go buy yourself a nice dinner on the
zócalo
tonight.”

Anna didn't even look at the money. “We paid,
we lost
, fourteen thousand dollars on this mask. What happened to our deposit?”

“I sent—”

“He never got it.”

The dealer looked away.

“I flew here because you told my father it was legitimate.” She wanted him to acknowledge his complicity.

Gonzáles frowned. “I told your father I couldn't promise the mask's veracity without seeing it in person. I told you that, too. Ventures like this are always a risk.”

“You still collect a commission.”

“Two thousand dollars?” The dealer sniffed. “Since we are being honest, I will tell you exactly what happened. This digger e-mailed me a photograph of the mask. He was very agitated and wanted to sell it right away. I think:
If legitimate, this is the mask of the century.
Frankly, your father needs a discovery this size to restore his name. I write him.
He
is the one who gets excited, claims it
has
to be Montezuma's death
mask. I express reservations, but agree to broker the deal, for less than my usual fee because I like and respect your father.”

Anna's indignation collapsed. It was a new version of the same lousy story. Mexicans had taken her father for a ride. Or he had taken himself—and then taken her.

“Did Montezuma even
have
a death mask?” she asked.

Gonzáles interlaced his hands behind his head, as if they'd reached his favorite part of the story. “I am a dreamer. I continue to believe in the mask.” He paused, staring into the half distance. “And when it is discovered, I plan to collect the commission.”

“So this mask is worth nothing?”

“Not necessarily.” His smile was friendly, corrupt. “A reproduction can bring its owner as much pleasure as the genuine.”

“I bet for the right price, you'd declare it authentic.” Her insinuation was insulting, but she didn't care.

Gonzáles did his best to look indignant. “Despite what Americans think, not all Mexicans are for sale, Miss Ramsey.” More gently, he added: “Your father's enthusiasm is an enviable quality. Most collectors have given up on the legend. I am glad your father has not.”

It still didn't add up. “But why would the gunman in Tepito go to the trouble of stealing a worthless mask? It makes no sense.”

“He probably works for Reyes.” Gonzáles shrugged. “We cannot guess what story of revenge was being played out. Even small disagreements are settled with guns.
You owe me money, I shoot you. You look at me funny, I shoot you again.
I did not call Reyes, but no one
has
to call Reyes. Reyes just shows up.”

“But he didn't shoot the looter—or me—he took the mask.”

The dealer hung his head. “I am sorry to involve you in this ugliness. I should not have called your father, and he should never have sent
you. Take this bit of money as an apology. I will hang the mask in my office as a reminder not to abuse my influence.”

He held out the money. Anna didn't budge.

He sighed with sympathy. “If I may offer you some advice: Go home. You are not safe here. To carry around a mask that looks valuable is as dangerous as carrying the real thing. In Mexico, politicians are shot dead in the morning sun,
panzas
full of tamales and mescal. Their bodyguards step aside to be sure the bullet reaches its target. The streets are crowded, but there are no witnesses. The art world is just as brutal.”

Anna stuffed the mask in her pack. She was pissed. She was thirsty.

Gonzáles walked her to the door. “Be careful,” he warned. “Every day, priceless art is broken by careless hands. I would hate for you to be one of those things.”

—

Anna pushed through the city, disgusted.
The worthless mask bounced against her back, a chiming reminder of her own stupidity. She hadn't thought herself capable of fetishism, but when a masterpiece had been dangled, she'd jumped, rushing headlong into danger. Chasing the mask had made her feel important. Without it, she was just another tourist, like the hideous group in front of her now, slogging along in their Bermuda shorts behind a guide hoisting a closed umbrella.

“The oil in the peppers can burn your eyes, so you'll want to wear gloves.” A foodie tour. Have mouth, will travel. “Of course, the larger ones you can stuff. . . . What? Yes, you can put anything inside a
poblano
. They are docile, grandma-friendly. As I said earlier,
ancho
,
pasilla
, and
guajillo
form the holy trinity of
mole
.”

The holy trinity of mole.
Why were tourists so incredibly annoying? Some twisted form of self-hatred. A mirror? Your own inanity reflected?

Anna squeezed past them, steering to the
zócalo
, practicing the phrases she would need to order her three favorite drinks. At her usual café, she saw something alarming and froze. Salvador was sitting across from a gorgeous woman. She wore skinny jeans, high-heel sandals, a silk scarf. Her dark hair shone like polished rock. A regular beauty pageant contestant. Miss Venezuela. The two of them were holding hands. Both hands. Four hands on the table, a confessional scene from a
telenovela
. The woman was weeping. Salvador was gesturing
No, no,
reassuring her, patting her arm. Only someone delusional would read the scene as anything other than what it was: a man pleading with his lover for forgiveness.

Anna pivoted hard. Sweat rose off her back. She hadn't realized how hard she'd been hoping.

—

In and out of shops
she drifted, touching things she didn't want, indignation collapsing into despair. How naive she had been.
I thought you were smarter than that.
No, in fact. She wasn't. Or had there been a misunderstanding? Maybe the woman was a friend or some clingy ex. Maybe Salvador was leaving the goddess for Anna.
He likes you.
He'll explain.
Just give him a chance.

Later that afternoon, she marched to Salvador's apartment. The fact-checker. The woman scorned. She rang the bell, waited. It would take him a minute to leave his apartment, cross the central patio, reach the entrance that fronted the street. Finally, the giant door inched open. Salvador's expression moved so quickly from pleased to peeved that
Anna wasn't sure the pleasure had been there at all. A woman's navy cardigan rested over his shoulder.

“I was in the neighborhood, so I stopped by.”

He winced. “I am glad.”

He was lying. He was not glad.

“Would you like to get a coffee?” Anna asked, already retreating from her original plan. She would not ask about the woman.

He didn't meet her eyes. “I am sorry. I can't right now.”

“You have company?” Anna nodded at the cardigan.

“Something has come up. I'll be busy for a while.”

Anna was sweating. She hated him.

“I will call you,” he promised.

He would never call her.

“Okay, well,” she said, stepping back.
“Buena suerte con tus aventuras.”

His shoulders dropped. “It's not like that.”

“No,” Anna agreed. “It's probably not.”

—

At the Buen Viaje travel agency,
Anna booked a flight home. Monday. Four days. That gave her the weekend to deal with her mother's ashes. She'd come to terms with the idea of scattering her remains. Life was scattered. Life was a crazy mess of particles.

She should call her father, but she didn't have the heart to kill his dream. She'd bluff a text or two until she got home, then break the bad news in person. She pulled out her phone. One voicemail. One text. She took the voicemail first, neck hairs prickling. From thousands of
miles away, she heard and smelled and tasted and touched and saw the air where her father was standing. Salt. Lime. Beer. Ice. His voice was sloshy.

“Hello, Anna. It's your father. Listen, I hope this isn't too late. Don't come home yet. I'm coming down there. Damn the knees. I realize we never talked about
customs
. If you're stopped, you need to know what to say. I will handle everything. Jesus, it's loud in here. Can you still hear me? Your mother usually carried the masks through customs and she'd tell the officers . . .” He was laughing now. “She was an amazing woman, the only person who really understood me.”

Anna dropped the phone. She missed the next few phrases, but what did it matter.

“I'll find you at the Sunrise. Okay. Signing off. This is your father. Thank you. You're a wonderful daughter. Be careful. Okay. Bye-bye.”

As she walked home, Anna dug up a cigarette, inhaled a pale green rush. She'd lost count of what number this was. Back at the Puesta, she poured a mescal, lay down, watching the ceiling fan spin. Her father was drinking again. How silly she'd been to think he could change. That she could. He would never make it to Mexico.

She remembered the text. David.
The florist wants a security deposit. Please advise.

Anna recognized the dangerous feeling growing inside her. This was how she had felt before David. She'd hurt herself to prove no one else could, self-destruction being its own sort of revenge. Tonight, she would go out.
The fact-checker does the big city.
Read my rough draft. Count my words. Highlight my best passages. Fix my bad grammar. Reposition my transitions. Sharpen each point. Punctuate. Tighten. Control. Command. Shift. Return. Delete.

—

At Macho Tacos,
it was
hora feliz
. Expats with brash voices and empty cargo shorts swiveled on barstools. Anna downed two strawberry margaritas for the price of one and met Kathy from Minneapolis, who introduced her to Steve, whom people called Bigfoot. Anna asked Bigfoot if he was big and he said, “So I've been told.” Kathy backed off to hang with her flip-flop girls, and Steve bought Anna a happy-hour shot, and they played some
Gilligan's Island
drinking game that Anna kept losing. Pretty soon, he was calling her Ginger.

At sundown, they staggered outside, past the ladies closing the market. The air smelled like raw meat. Anna told a banana joke, but couldn't remember the punch line. She kept falling off her sandals.

They climbed to his apartment. Bigfoot was a slob. Deodorant on the coffee table, pistachio shells scattered on a plate. He tried to undress her, but couldn't figure out the buttons and, more confounding, her bra that opened in the front. Bigfoot was used to women being one way, and Anna was another. “What about some music?” she said. “Right-o,” Bigfoot said, and put on Jimmy Buffett. Anna did a tiki dance, her blouse askew. She wished she had another drink, then magically, she did. She felt almost beautiful. Beauty being its own sort of mask.