There were matching cracks in Ethel’s face, dividing it into sections like a relief map. She was very thin. Everything about her was thin, her arms and legs, her greying hair, even her skin looked transparent. The blue veins in her temples seemed barely covered.
“It’s rude to stare.” She spoke just above a whisper, hissing slightly over the s sounds. The effect was soft and deadly like escaping gas. “I told you there were changes. I can’t afford to keep the place up.”
“B. J. left you well provided for.”
“He did. But times change — increasing taxes, inflation, some bad investments, a loan to an old friend. No wild extravagances, simply normal living, yet in a few years a house begins to look like this. B. J. would be distressed to see it.”
“Don’t worry, he won’t see it.”
“No? You might be wrong.”
“What makes you say that?”
“ESP, perhaps. Perhaps something a good deal more practical... Gracious, I’m forgetting my manners. Please sit down. The wing chairs by the fireplace are very comfortable, but then, you know that, don’t you? Now, how shall I address you? I don’t believe it would be quite appropriate to call you Gilly or G. G., as B. J. did. B. J. and G. G. How sweet.”
“My name is Mrs. Decker. I prefer to stand.”
“Very well.” She herself sat down in one of the wing chairs and began stroking its red velvet upholstery very gently as though soothing an elderly family pet. “You mustn’t think Violet Smith has been indulging in idle gossip. She felt compelled to tell me certain facts.”
“Such as?”
“That you were attempting to locate B. J. and the trail ended in the Rio Seco jail, where he is believed to have died.”
“And why did Violet Smith feel compelled to tell you all this?”
“Because your facts and mine don’t agree. That loan to an old friend I mentioned a few minutes ago, it wasn’t actually for an old friend.”
“It was for B. J.?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three years ago. He didn’t die in jail. I paid ten thousand dollars to get him out of there. It wasn’t easy to collect that much extra cash. I sold some of my antiques and borrowed the rest from my sister. I know the money arrived safely. He wrote me a thank you note after his release, just a line or two, without any return address. I didn’t keep it. I guess I was piqued because it was so short, so — almost ungracious. I don’t think he’d ever accepted money from a woman before and perhaps it hurt his pride.” There was a ragged edge of doubt in her voice. “I still have the first letter, though, the one where he asked for the money. That was gracious, oh yes, very gracious indeed. I want you to read it.”
“Why?”
“So you won’t have to take my word for anything.”
“I take it.”
“Don’t you think it would be better if you took his? Here.”
The letter Gilly had received five years before had been written on heavy bond, engraved Jenlock Haciendas, Bahía de Ballenas, Baja California Sur. This one was on a kind of onionskin paper Gilly hadn’t seen since she was a child. It was postmarked Rio Seco and the return address was the Quarry: LA CANTERA, PENITENCIARIA DEL ESTADO.
Dear Etheclass="underline"
I don’t know how to start this letter because I shouldn’t be writing it — not to you of all people. I treated you rotten. You have every right and reason to tear this up before you go any further. But please don’t. I haven’t anyone else to turn to. I am locked in this terrible place which is so terrible you couldn’t bear to come inside the gate. I remember that day we went to the pound to claim Angel, how you cried just seeing the animals locked up. Well now I’m one of them...
Gilly said, “Who was Angel?”
“Our Yorkshire terrier.”
“I didn’t know B. J. ever had a dog.” It was such a small thing, completely unimportant, but it bothered her. It made her realize that he’d had a whole life before she even met him, that he’d been married to Ethel twice as long as to her.
I’m in this filthy cage Ethel and I didn’t do anything to hurt people. I just thought it was a good idea to bring some prosperity to that God forsaken village I was stuck in. Why am I always being stuck in places? It must be lack of character like you told me once. It really hurt me your saying that. I was never sure what character was so how could I get any.
I keep wishing I could start over or at least go back to the point where I began making bad mistakes. You are the only woman I ever truly loved and admired and respected. I could never live up to your standards. None of the other women had class like you Ethel. That’s why they appealed to me I guess because they were no better than I was which wasn’t much...
Gilly’s hands had begun to tremble. The paper made little rustling sounds like evil whispers. “He was desperate. People tell lies when they’re desperate.”
“Or truths.”
“There’s not a word of truth in—”
“Go on reading.”
I don’t understand how it all happened between Gilly and me. She was a lot of fun and we had some laughs but then suddenly she was expecting me to marry her. She asked me to, I’m not kidding. I was flattered. I had to really talk fast to get you even to consider marrying me and here was this other woman anxious to have me. I’m not making excuses Ethel. I just want you to realize that often things just happen to people like me. Ordinary people must see things coming and duck maybe, or fight back or run away. But there are some of us who don’t see what’s coming and we end up in a place like this. I won’t try to describe it for you. You wouldn’t believe it anyway being you’re so clean in mind and body. Do you still take all those showers every day? My God what I’d give for a long hot shower right now. To be clean again what a luxury that would be. Everybody and everything at the Quarry is slimy. It’s funny how the people in the U.S. have so many nicknames for prison like it was kind of a joke — pokey, slammer, clink, brig, cooler, tank etc. Here nobody ever calls it anything but the Quarry. It’s too serious to have a nickname. I must get out. I must.
Ethel you are the only hope I have left. One of the guards told me that my case is finally coming up next month. I can’t explain how this crazy system works but it’s not the way ours does with a jury, etc. The man who is the magistrate assigned to me will decide my fate. Word from the grapevine is that he charges a fixed price to release Americans $10,000. Guilt and innocence and justice they’re only words here. No matter what I did nor didn’t do, for $10,000 I can get out of this place.
Please help me. Please for the love of God help me Ethel. I’m going to die here unless you get me out. I am filthy. My clothes, my cot, the food I eat, it’s all filthy. My teeth are rotting and my hair is falling out and my eyes are so bad I can hardly see what I’m writing. I’ve paid a hundred times for every hurt I’ve done anyone. I can’t take it much longer. I am at your mercy Ethel.
Gilly folded the letter and put it back in the envelope very quickly so that Ethel might not notice how badly her hands were trembling. She felt sick, as if someone had struck her a mortal blow in the stomach, and the lump in her throat was so large and heavy that she was afraid her voice couldn’t push past it: “Why did you ask me to read this?”
“So you’d understand how useless it is for you to go on searching for B. J. Even if you found him, he wouldn’t want to live with you anyway. He turned to me in his hour of need, not you. It’s all there in the letter. I am the only woman he ever loved and admired and respected.”
“Shut up, damn you! Shut your vicious mouth, you—”
“B. J. was right,” Ethel said softly. “You have no class.”