He lay down. When he woke up, his face was covered with mosquitoes. He crushed the creatures and sat up with a groan. Then he summarized his six conclusions about the Malinche Dance. This would punish Adela. His hateful memories of her resembled arches standing all alone in a plain of hot mud and dust.
Aunt Bertha was making tortillas. He thanked her. Presently it was night, and he could lie down again.
When he awoke, with his dream still alive in his mind, like a fresh-plucked flower in a vase, he was astonished at how happy he felt. He would have wished to describe his feelings to his aunt, but, like so many young men, he imagined that opening his heart to an old woman who had known him as a child might be humiliating. So he kept to himself. In his notebook he wrote: Malinche — syncretism. Imperialism of the vampire. Treachery of the feminine.
His aunt had another girl for him, a pious virgin whose skirts were so clean they squeaked, so he fled to the municipal archives, sailing over pages of writing which were as shallow and wide-spaced as sea-waves. By the time he reached the fourth signature seal, his forehead began to ache. Excellent Señor: In cavilda celebration on the twenty-third of the present month, being present in the office of the Lord Governor, in which you were pleased to approve for the third and fourth deputies of this… innumerable unfortunate wretches who… my task will be to go within five or six months to distribute salt, the smell of dust and mildew strengthening, until he began to cough. When would he cease to hate Adela? The figure of a veiled woman hath oftimes been seen, and that long tall dress of greenish-grey tree-roots with its train of dusty tendrils, what did it mean? Her dress is green, like unto a serpent’s hue. More syncretism, so it seemed. This serpent-woman sounded quite repulsive. If she turned out to be an old avatar of Malinche’s, that would serve Adela right. Ricardo wondered whether his aunt knew this legend, which seemed to have blotted a century and more of narrow, wavering shards of yellow-brown paper in which dark chocolate script seemed immersed just below the surface. The said four thousand pesos within the date of this writing… Before me the aforesaid witness and scribe deposited the following… jade in his mouth. Since the swearings and reasons in this writing are the most efficacious and certain, I record the place, in hopes of saving others from being devoured by that she-demon who… This tribunal which God hath opened for our benefit… the helmsman Miguel Minjárez, whose corpse hath been proven as the nucleus of this latest plague, for three green serpents issued from his mouth when he was burned. The ill-omened residence in which these young men are invariably discovered… Oferta de 4,000. Pesos hecha por Don José Gil de Partearroyo para libertarse de cargos cobcejiles… jade… to punish the English pirates… a mulata clad in green.
Insinuating his fingers between the ancient pages which were melting together, Ricardo found loose brittle sheets, their edges all rough, their clotted old mucilage shining like wax; and on the second of these, above a signature which resembled two sliced apples separated by a violin, was a crude map of the so-called cursed house and its environs. Ricardo recognized Avenida Nicolás Bravo. Returning the old ledger, he went out for ice cream, watched girls, returned to Aunt Bertha’s, then, being informed that the pious virgin and her mother had been invited for supper, rushed down by the zócalo, wishing murder to Adela; so there sat our slender young man with his elbows on his wide-apart knees, reading legends about La Llorona on the steps outside the doorway of the cybercafé where the crucifix guarded the dusty computer and the digital print of Jesus curled on the wall. Skipping supper, for which he would surely do penance (he loved his aunt), he set out for Avenida Nicolás Bravo, just in case it might be ghostly, and then, not knowing what else to do, he sat down in the playground, watching a little girl in a rainbow dress toddling very cautiously to her father who pretended to be a monster. The child screamed, then giggled. Remembering that he had begged Adela to have a child with him, Ricardo felt sick with grief and rage. Just then an old mestiza beggar humbled herself before his feet. For pity he gave her a hundred pesos. Studying him like some shrewd procuress, she asked: Señor, are you looking for someone?
He hesitated. But then he found that although he could not confide in his aunt, it came easy to describe the green-clad lady to this stranger, all the more readily since he disbelieved in her. Anything for folklore’s sake!
My God, señor, do you mean to kill yourself? Please be careful; that’s La Llorona!
Tolerantly Ricardo said: Please tell me what you know.
The woman said: There’s a story…
Yes, please do tell me.
Señor, in that building she… I know a way in. When I need to go to the toilet.
Oh, yes, he said. That way. Thank you; I see.
But the most evil house is like a castle, she explained. Over there on Hidalgo and Callejón California, where she comes out.
Now Ricardo began to feel quite happy and interested. Perhaps he might even get a chapter out of this.
As soon as the old woman left him alone he approached the rectangular ancient building there on Avenida Nicolás Bravo, not the castle but the place whose railingstone had blackened with grime and mold, while the casements gaped blackly open, the ancient shutters being caught in a fossilized tremble; and he saw trees growing inside, while outside a serene cherubic face, doubly winged, remarked him blandly from above one arch; the other arches were missing. How old were those wooden doors? Rocks and boards blocked the doorway, and behind them a rotten railing from the head of a vast old bed. Ricardo peered in, and a moth brushed his cheek with the hem of its tiny skirt. The stench of mildew rushed out. He looked over his shoulder; nobody was in sight. So he pushed open a window, and a lizard-shaped patch of darkness greeted him. Locking his palms upon the windowsill, he leaped and pulled himself up into the ruin.
The first thing he spied was considerably farther within: a dead dark doorway with a wooden grating over it. The floor was nicely tiled but almost impossible to distinguish. He decided to return with a flashlight.
The place was more sad than eerie at first, but it offered him an intriguing strangeness, as if the scent of copal were half-hiding the vulgar odor of death. It was so quiet that he could almost hear the mold growing on the walls.
His aunt was waiting up for him. — Chasing girls again? she roguishly inquired.
Adela used to say: I feel your desperation, and it scares me. — She was never happy, and her voice was flat. But, oh, those tender little lips of hers, he couldn’t get enough of them! They were like fresh new leaves. He remembered how he used to lie next to her at night and wait for her to touch him, because he no longer dared to touch her.