A Thorn in the Bush (3 page)

Chapter 7

On Sunday, the second morning of Mrs. Ross’s “illness,” Serena entered the sick chamber at eight-thirty, shouldering the door open while she protected the breakfast tray in her thick arms. She wore an orange bib apron over her black “church” dress. Her braids were tied off by two bits of silver ribbon rescued from a Christmas wrapping the previous year. On the tray was the diet she considered fitting for the ill: two eggs coddled in milk, orange juice, one piece of dry toast. And instead of coffee, she had brought this morning a cup of Jamaica tea looking faintly pinkish in a yellow cup.

Mrs. Ross had been awake since the first church bells had begun calling to Mass at five-thirty. But there was no way to get Serena to bring breakfast earlier.

“The sick need more sleep!” Serena would say. Then would come the calamitous case histories of those who had ignored this warning.

Mrs. Ross listened to Serena’s sandals slapping across the tile floor, heard them go mute on the serape-rug. She turned, looked up at the maid.

Serena’s Aztec face held a look of pleased grief. There was a small bandage on the middle finger of her right hand. She had burned herself at the gas stove the previous day. Mrs. Ross knew that the bandage would stay there at least two days past the point of complete healing—a reminder of martyrdom.

“Father Aguilar said Mass for the repose of Hector Reliquero’s soul this morning,” said Serena.

Mrs. Ross blinked. “Oh?” Then she remembered:
Reliquero—that’s the young fisherman from Solas who drowned.

Serena put the breakfast tray on the nightstand while she raised the blinds at the window beside the bed half way. (To raise window blinds all the way in a sick room created great danger.) Still, there was a warm wash of sunshine across the edge of the bed. Mrs. Ross bathed a hand in it. Serena bent, helped her employer sit up, adjusted the nightgown worn at these times as a concession to propriety.

The glow of sunlight failed to dispel a cold gloom that dripped from the maid’s every motion as she deposited the tray in Mrs. Ross’s lap.

“On the radio, it was said that an entire busload of religious pilgrims was killed in an accident near Oaxaca last night,” she announced.

Mrs. Ross grimaced. Yesterday, it had been the collapse of a building in Italy. Serena’s recording-device memory switched automatically to these things at the first hint of sickness. Global news services kept her saturated with avalanches, floods, train accidents, hotel fires.…

“Anyone from San Juan on the bus?” asked Mrs. Ross.

“They have not yet released the names of the dead.” Serena folded her arms, stared at the breakfast tray.

Alerted, Mrs. Ross studied the array of food, noted the washed-out pinkish-brown of what should have been a cup of coffee. She pointed to it. “What’s that?”

“Jamaica tea, Señora.”

“Jamaica tea?”

“My sainted mother, Señora, if only we had given her Jamaica tea soon enough, I am sure she would not have died when she did.” Serena crossed herself.

“Take it away.”

“But Señora!” Serena stiffened into her martinet pose. “It has a delicious flavor and …”

“I said take it away!”

Even martinets wilted at this tone. Serena sniffed, as much as to say:
“Let your death be on your own shoulders then!”
She put the offending cup on the nightstand.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” demanded Mrs. Ross.

Serena’s face retained an impassive scowl. She dipped a hand into the pocket of her orange apron, produced a thin package wrapped in tan kraft paper. “The Señor Hoblitt sends you this.” She held it out. “It is a picture.”

Mrs. Ross accepted the offering. Hoblitt? She unfolded the paper. It crackled, and one corner tore. Inside there lay a tempera crayon sketch of herself. The features were drawn boldly without background, but the artist had removed about twenty years from her age: more pink in the complexion, fewer wrinkles around the eyes, cheeks fuller, hair a dark auburn-red.

The portrayal looked very much like the Emma Ross who had come to San Juan in nineteen-thirty-seven. For several heartbeats, Mrs. Ross wondered if this might be Hoblitt’s subtle way of telling her that he knew all. Then she calmed herself, thinking: The man isn’t capable of such subtlety. Still, she wondered: Who told him what color my hair used to be? That’s something he couldn’t get just from looking at me.

“A good likeness, no?” said Serena. “It looks just the way you did when you first came to us.” She nodded. “If you do not want the little portrait, Señora, perhaps you could give it to me. It would be very nice to have.” (And the tone of Serena’s voice added: “… after you are dead.”)

Mrs. Ross shook her head, studied the sketch. She saw the same kind of character penetration that was revealed in the painting of Paulita and was repelled by it. There was a heavy-lidded, furtive look to her eyes, a sense of watchfulness in the set of the head.

“Was there a message?” asked Mrs. Ross.

Serena spoke stiffly, angered by the casual denial of her request: “It is on the back.”

Mrs. Ross turned the sketch over, saw there in a scrawling hand: “I apologize for snapping at you. Blame it on a lousy breakfast that day. Let’s be friends.”

How very odd
, thought Mrs. Ross. She turned back to the drawing. It was an irritating thing, not at all the way she pictured herself. A thought struck her. She said: “Has this Hoblitt made a large painting of me, Serena?”

“Who knows?” Serena shrugged. “María Carlotta says there are other paintings which the Señor Hoblitt keeps in a locked box. It is said that he prepares them for the show by foreign artists to be held soon at the University of Mexico. It is next week, I think.”

Mrs. Ross lifted her attention from the sketch, stared at the
ropero
opposite the foot of the bed, thought:
If he’s made a large portrait like that and displays it at a public showing …
She shuddered.
God knows who might see it!

Serena cleared her throat.

I must do something
, thought Mrs. Ross.
If he has made such a portrait, perhaps I could buy …

Again, Serena cleared her throat.

“What is it?” demanded Mrs. Ross.

“Don Jaime has sent Dr. Herrera to examine you.”

Anger flared in Mrs. Ross. “That miserable incompetent! Why does Don Jaime always have to send him? Tell the fool to go back where he came from!”

Secure in the knowledge of past victories, Serena raised her attention to the ceiling. “He awaits even now outside your door, Señora.” She sighed. “Within the sound of your voice.”

“Let him wait! And bring me some coffee!” Mrs. Ross took up her toast, dipped it into the milk and coddled egg, began eating. She thought:
I wonder how much money Hoblitt would want for …

“But coffee makes danger before a visit of the doctor!” Serena looked horrified that Mrs. Ross would not remember this witch signal of disaster.

Mrs. Ross swallowed a bite of her food, took a deep breath, composed herself. She recalled a similar argument during her previous illness. But she had learned even before that how to meet such situations. One did not lunge into them head on: one rolled with the punch.

“If I must see the doctor to get my coffee, then I must,” said Mrs. Ross. “Send the fool in, then bring me the coffee.”

“If the doctor says it is permitted,” countered Serena.

Mrs. Ross closed her eyes, held her temper. The effort showed in the tightness of her voice: “I will see Dr. Herrera.”

“Yes, Señora.” Serena bowed herself out of the room backward, as though withdrawing from the presence of royalty.

Dr. Herrera replaced her in the doorway, strode into the room, calling out: “Ah, ha, what have we here?” His Spanish was full of dropped endings, short vowels—the Mexico City accent.

“Indisposition, no more,” snapped Mrs. Ross. She took a final bite of the toast, put the tray beside her on the bed.

The doctor put his bag on the floor, pulled up a cane chair. It creaked under him. Dr. Herrera was a large man—both tall and broad—with a square, heavy-jowled face, Indian-black hair touched by grey at the temple. He radiated a confidence that soothed sick tourists. Beyond a few medical terms, the doctor spoke perhaps fifteen words of English. Among them: “Hello there.” “Goodbye now.” and “Take this as directed.”

“No malaise of the stomach?” he asked. (Dr. Herrera was convinced, with some justification, that most North Americans’ medical problems originated in the stomach or intestines.)

“I’m not a tourist!” barked Mrs. Ross.

“But, of course,” said Dr. Herrera. “Was I not in the courtroom on the day you became a citizen of our beloved country?”

“Maybe you were,” agreed Mrs. Ross. Then: “You’ll notice they didn’t expropriate
my
properties!”

“To be sure.” Dr. Herrera put a hand to her forehead, looked thoughtful. “The appetite is good?”

“Yes! If that fool Serena would only fix me some decent food.”

The doctor took his hand away, patted the edge of the bed. “The indisposition: does it pain you in any particular place?”

Mrs. Ross felt that she was being bullied. She pushed back into the pillows, muttered almost against her will: “A little soreness of the throat, no more.”

“Ah, but one must not leave these things unattended.” One of Dr. Herrera’s ape-like arms reached down to the floor beside him. He unsnapped the bag, removed a tongue-depressor. “Let us observe the throat, eh?”

“It’s not that bad,” protested Mrs. Ross. And, indeed, she could barely feel the soreness that had kept her wakefully irritated during the night.

“All the same,” insisted Dr. Herrera. He moved the depressor toward her mouth.

Mrs. Ross found herself going through the ridiculous routine of saying, “Ahhhhh.” It made her cough.

When the coughing spell subsided, Dr. Herrera said: “I will send the girl with an injection. You have picked up a little virus. There is some around here just now.”

“No injections!” protested Mrs. Ross.

Dr. Herrera ignored the interruption. He removed a glass tube of pills from his bag. “And here is some
Viotalidina,
just in case there is an involvement of the stomach, eh? I will leave these with Serena. One little
pastilla
every four hours. And you must increase your intake of liquids.”

“Let Serena take the pills,” growled Mrs. Ross. Then: “Oh, and tell her it’s permitted for me to have coffee.”

Dr. Herrera grasped the bag, lifted his bulk out of the cane chair. He smiled, a tourist-soothing, confident expression that made him look like a Buddha with hair. “But of course. You will drink the coffee to wash down the
pastillas.”
He bowed. “I will look in on you in two days.”

Mrs. Ross, seeing that she would pay for her coffee by swallowing the pills, started to protest, then resigned herself to the inevitable. It occurred to her that the Mexicans
always
rolled with a punch.
Trained to it from infancy!
she thought.

“Goodbye now,” recited Dr. Herrera in English.

Serena returned after showing the doctor to the door. She brought coffee and one of the pills. A look of gleeful malice filled her face—especially around the eyes. “The doctor says …”

“I know what the doctor says!”

Mrs. Ross gulped the pill, shuddered, sipped her coffee. Presently, she said: “Is that Hoblitt still painting out there?”

“The portrait of Señorita Paulita grows more beautiful by the minute,” said Serena. “Such an artist, that one!”

Mrs. Ross glanced at the sketch lying face up on her nightstand.
He probably charges outrageous prices for his work,
she thought.
And wouldn’t I look the fool going out there to ask if he’s painted my picture! Simply outrageous prices. I’d look like a vain old woman. Especially if he hadn’t painted my picture. And he most likely hasn’t. When could he have painted it? He hasn’t been standing around mooning at me the way he has with Paulita.

She sat there, wrestling with the weak remnants of her previous worry.

Serena said: “Is there anything you wish, Señora?”

“Just a moment, just a moment.” Mrs. Ross reached out, reversed the sketch, studied Hoblitt’s message.

Peace offering, hmmmph!
she thought.
He’s just found out how rich I am. Probably thinks I’ll come right out with this little sketch and spend a thousand dollars hiring him to paint a big one like it. Well, he can just think again.

“Our street is very busy for a Sunday,” said Serena.

“Oh?” Mrs. Ross relaxed against her pillows, thought: Jaime will get rid of him. I must put more faith in Jaime.

Serena said: “Already this morning there have passed …” She ticked them off on her fingers: “… the Señor Iriarte, the Señora Aguilar y Cantido, the Señor Muñoz with his Señora, the Señoritas Castillano, the entire familia García, the …”

“All gawking at that fool painting,” said Mrs. Ross. And she thought:
They’re all curious about the picture of Paulita. That’s all it is. Jaime was curious, too, nothing more.

“There is curiosity about the portrait,” said Serena.

That’s all it was,
thought Mrs. Ross.
Jaime was curious. And, fool that he is, he let that insufferable young man sell him a painting. Probably paid ten pesos for it, too.

Mrs. Ross finished her coffee. “What time did Señor Hoblitt arrive to paint this morning?”

“Shortly after eight, Señora.”

“What Mass did the Señorita Paulita attend?”

“But she always attends the first Mass at five-thirty, Señora.” Serena appeared puzzled. “I saw her there myself.”

“Then Señor Hoblitt did not see Paulita outside … on her crutches.”

“Oh!” Serena shook her head, braids dancing. “He is like all artists: a late ariser. María Carlotta says he seldom gets himself up before seven-thirty.”

Mrs. Ross nodded.

“Is it wrong that Señor Hoblitt should see the Señorita on her crutches?” asked Serena. She half-turned her head, bent forward. One braid slipped over her shoulder to swing in front of Mrs. Ross—a silver-bowed pendulum.

Mrs. Ross eyed the braid, succumbed to inspiration. “It makes great danger,” she muttered.