Dancing with the Tiger (14 page)

Hugo lowered his tiger mask and felt the knife that lay over his heart. The sun beat down on him, filling his groin with longing, one yellow recalling another. It was Carnival in San Juan del Monte, and high on the dais, local dignitaries sat stuffed like taxidermy. The brass band coddled their silent instruments beneath tissue-paper bunting that hung limp, everyone, everything, hoping for a breeze. Hugo kicked the dirt, wishing he had already done what he came to do and could look back with the pleasant distance of memory, but the mayor had gotten hold of the microphone, and his oratory blossomed like a miraculous poppy.

He thanked everyone for coming to San Juan del Monte, in the great state of Oaxaca, in the grand Republic of Mexico. He reminded everyone that these dances dated back to the Conquest, when the Spanish imposed Catholicism on the Indians, and the Indians mocked the
conquistadors with these same dances performed here today. “Yes, my friends, we gather to celebrate the beauty of Mexico, which lives in harmony as one
pueblo,
one
gente
.” The mayor's voice caressed the cobblestones and swept through the village and rose over the mountains into the clouds where, months later, it would rain down on the village. “Everyone should try the tacos. Everyone should taste the roasted iguana. But hurry. The dances are about to begin.”

Hugo threw down his cigarette in disgust.
Once he climbs on the donkey, he doesn't want to get off.

On his back, Hugo wore a two-liter soda bottle filled with
tepache
. He swung it around and drank, ocher spirits burning his nostrils. Sweet corn and brown sugar. He felt light-headed but clear, ethereal yet committed. He did not see the town drunk, sprawled in the dust like a dog; the chunks of beef cooking on the open fire, enough to feed the village; the teenage girl holding a baby, her eyes brown and empty as stained teacups; the children, cherry soda staining their mouths, faces glazed from sugar and boredom; the tourists, white as soap, who'd come to Mexico to snap their cameras, missing the very thing they tried so hard to see; or the prepubescent Queen of Carnival in her turquoise taffeta dress and paper crown, who slumped in her Corona chair, intent on her lollipop.

Hugo had eyes for only one man.

He waited as his country waited for prosperity, as children waited for Christmas, as women waited for husbands to return from the North, as husbands waited for mistresses to return to bed, as Mexicans waited for a president who did not steal, as they waited for a police chief who did not steal, as they waited for a priest who did not steal. They waited with the patience of a donkey tied at the side of the road.

At last, the mayor sat down. The band lit up. A streak of mirror-eyed cats streamed through the swirling, perspiring crowd. Hugo dropped his mask over his face. Every tiger danced the same dance. Every tiger wore the same face. They bent to the ground, rattled their maracas. The music quivered, shivery as the devil's violin.

Pedro wasn't hard to find.

The Tiger recognized his friend's posture, would have known his bare feet if they had been lined up with a dozen others. The Tiger inched closer until he was staring at the nape of Pedro's neck, its soft channel. Symmetry has a beauty you can't quite explain.

“¿Dónde está la máscara?”

Pedro jerked around.

“Yes, it's me, old friend,” the Tiger snarled. “Those were delicious tacos. Where is the mask?”

Pedro laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. “Reyes?”

The Tiger showed off his machete.

“You going to hurt me?”

“Not if you give me the mask.”

Pedro spun. The Tiger grabbed his arm, freed his knife. Another tiger, two hundred pounds of liquor and pride, careened into Pedro, slamming him gut-first into the waiting machete. The blade pressed into the pool cleaner's chest and hung there, perpendicular, a cartoon man with a knife in his chest. The body fell to the stones. Violins screeched. Dancers pushed downstream. Who could stop for a drunk? Let someone else clear the carrion.

The Tiger imagined Reyes's hideous face screaming
What the fuck? You were supposed to get the mask and
then
kill him.
Sweat rained down his arms and legs. The gardener gazed into the sky, waiting for divine
retribution, but the Lord turned his back, refusing to intercede: another death, another day, a tiger who kills a tiger.
Qué le vamos a hacer.
What can we do about it.

Out of nowhere, a missile shaped like an ear of corn—a comet or UFO or weapon—shot across the sky. It made no sense, but there it was, burning northward, showering sparks like the tendrils of a firecracker. The Tiger cried out, legs buckling. He pointed. Nearby dancers gazed up but, seeing nothing, turned away in disgust. Moments later, the mysterious comet faded over the mountains and the sky returned to its faceless blue.

The Tiger pushed through the crowd, panting, falling, pants falling, afraid the police would arrest him, afraid Reyes would kill him, but he reached the edge of the crowd without incident. Fire roared in his chest and loins. He was crying.

He had killed a man.

He had made his first sacrifice for love.

Pedro lay in the street, his moans lost in the cacophony of Carnival. Dancers often collapsed; the very drunkest had to be lifted—a three-man job—and swung to the curb like a dead deer. A ghoul leapt over his bleeding belly. A shimmery transvestite kicked him with her pump. Finally, a jaguar crouched, touched his bleeding chest, and yelled for help.

A fist of tigers descended to get a better view.
Something horrible has happened. Let me see.
In the chaos, dancers barked orders through the mouths of Christians and Moors, their wooden eyes unblinking. María, the baker, tenderly removed his mask and announced that it was Pedro, the
chavo
who cleans pools, son of Leonora Rodríguez, the old woman who stands at the fence.

Sí, soy yo. I am here. Don't leave me alone to die.

“He is breathing.”

“Loosen his clothes.”

María formed a tourniquet with her shawl. The butcher felt Pedro's wrist for a pulse. They did not love him, but they did not want him to die. He was a fixture in town, a champion of backgammon, a lover of orange soda, part of the landscape of home. He had no right to disappear so suddenly. It was like waking one morning to discover the cathedral was gone.

Pedro felt himself lifted. The sky reappeared, reflecting an ocean he would die without seeing. A woman said, “His face looks like foul milk.” A man said, “He's losing too much blood.” Children, giddy with questions, pulled their mothers, who shouted,
“¡Apúrate!”—Hurry up!—
dragging them away, as if death were contagious.

He was carried through the streets. Gossip buzzed like angry bees.
Who did this?
One man claimed a
moro
in sneakers had done it. Another blamed a tiger, but which one? Enrique Montoya García, an ancient man with a donkey, swore, “
El diablo lo hizo
.” The devil had stabbed the boy with a knife and flown over the mountains on the back of an eagle.

Pedro could not see them, but he heard and tasted and smelled them, his senses heightened in an ecstatic farewell.

They laid him in a rusty truck bed. Pain flowered before him. He was cold. His friends presented their faces like gifts. They wept.
They do not weep for me. They weep for themselves.
They know someday they too will die and they cannot imagine the world without themselves in it, a world that will keep dancing at Carnival.
If the death of Jesus could not ensure the salvation of man, what did the life of any one man matter?

Mi hijo. Who did this to you?

Mamá, be careful. They will come looking for you, too.

But he could no longer remember the men who wished him ill. And
he thought:
I am Pedro Rodríguez Modica, son of Leonora, a man who purifies water.
And he thought:
There is no child to carry my name.
And he thought:
I was a good boy but not a good man.

When he opened his eyes, he did not see his mother, or the Virgin, or the Angel of Death, just friends, who crossed themselves and mumbled to God. With sudden clarity, he could see who was shallow and who was wise, who would comfort his grieving sister by slipping a consoling hand under her shirt.

The truck's engine started with a kick, rolled forward, picked up speed, flying over
topes
, out of town, past the checkpoint of bored
federales
. Pedro took a last look at the sky. He was dying. The doctor had a degree from Tijuana. The man could not cure a sinus infection, let alone raise the dead.

Anna ran behind Salvador. She didn't care who she bumped. She cared only about the person holding her hand. They hadn't seen the murder, hadn't realized anything was wrong until people started screaming and the police cars swooped in with sirens and red pulsing lights.

At a crossroads, Salvador stopped, pulled Anna close, cursing the whole
desmadre
, promising to get them the hell out of there,
hasta la quinta chingada
, to the fifth son of a bitch, which Anna decided must be quite far away. Her cheek rested against his chest. His shirt smelled bitter and sweet. Anna admired the trees. Their sturdy trunks supported branches, which grew leaves, which offered shade to two people, who held each other trying to feel safe as the trees.

Salvador said, “I know a place we can go.”

On the last street in town, he pushed open a white metal gate. A
gray-haired man sat on a concrete terrace, chiseling a chunk of wood he steadied with his bare feet. His entire body was covered with sawdust. It was clear he had no idea what had transpired in the village.

The man wiped his hands on his apron before giving Salvador a slap on the shoulder. His smile was tired but kind.
He works hard,
Anna thought.
He is both poor and rich.

Salvador introduced her. “
Permíteme presentarte a Emilio Luna
, the most respected carver in San Juan del Monte.”

Electricity sizzled down Anna's spine. Emilio Luna. The man who had sold her father thousands of dollars of phony Grasshopper masks. She'd expected a villain, not a kindly goblin, a sprite, a
duende
. The carver's hand was light in hers, cool and dry. He tapped a plastic chair, showing Anna where to sit.

Spanish leapt forward. Anna caught a few flying nouns:
tigre, machete, sangre, cabrón
. She watched the carver's face, trying to see inside. Had this old man swindled her father? If he had, did she still care? Maybe conning her father had been the only way for the old man to feed his family. Laundry hung from a clothesline. Jeans. A giant bra. Husks of unpainted tiger masks lay scattered, but no grasshoppers.

Salvador turned to her. “I know we've had a scare, but Emilio Luna will answer your questions. He is willing to be in your book. Speak loudly, he is a little deaf in the right ear.”

Stupid book. Stupid lie. Anna fished out a notebook and pen.

“Do you want me to translate?” he asked.

Anna shook her head. She had her pride—and her dictionary.

Salvador gave her a leading stare. “Ask him about the Grasshopper masks.”

Anna understood now why the painter had defended the carver's
reputation. They were friends. This wasn't going to end well. Daniel Ramsey was either a fool or a liar.

“Please, sir, how long have you been carving?”

“My father was a carver.
His
father was a carver. People copy our designs, but we were the first in the village. Every fiesta, people came to my father for masks. ‘I want an old man.' ‘I want a tiger.' As a boy, I watched and practiced.” The man spoke slowly to her. She understood him.

“What kind of wood is that?” she asked.

“Copal.”

“Where do you get it?”

The man pointed to the hills, then picked up a tiger's head and held it between his thighs. With a metal tool and a mallet, he tapped the wood. There was a charming self-consciousness to the gesture; he would now perform for his American guest. A minute later, the tiger's eyeball emerged. Anna envied people who worked with their hands.

“
Señor
, how do you decide what to make next?”

He rubbed the grain with his thumb. “You listen to the wood. You dream.” He touched his temple.
“El Señor te da la inspiración.”

God gives you inspiration.
It bugged Anna how God talked to everybody but her. “Do you ever take commissions?”

“I sell tigers to the coasts.”

“Just tigers?”

“Tigers, Moors, donkeys . . . and people from the town.” He held up a dusty photograph of a girl. “I will make a mask of her for her birthday.”

“What about grasshoppers?” She watched his face closely.

“Grasshoppers? No grasshoppers. My original work is in the showroom.” The carver turned to Salvador. “Take her.”

They stood, left the old man outside. Salvador pushed back a curtain into an unlit room with twin beds. Two dozen masks were laid out, each more gruesome than the last. A hag spitting out a baby, an old man with blond fur growing from his eyes. A red-faced man with swollen lips, who looked like he'd caught his wife in bed with his brother. A zoo of misfits. A menagerie of the damned, but not a single grasshopper.
Duende.
A
duende
was an elf, but it was also a term for art so intense, so passionate and dark, the artist's soul had touched death. A bullfighter could have
duende
. A singer went nowhere without it.

Salvador focused on Anna in a way he hadn't before. He was testing her. “I always thought it was strange a gentle man could make masks like these. As a boy, they scared me. Do they scare you?”

Anna had spent most of her childhood being scared: scared her parents would divorce, scared her father would drive into a tree or take off to Mexico and never come home, but she didn't see her father in these masks, she saw herself, the inner crud of her being. She would never tell Salvador how bad it had gotten before David. How she slept with men she didn't care for. How she'd left the men who loved her most. How she drank to forget. This had been her pattern, the way she danced Carnival.

Anna smoothed the hag's hair.

“No,” she lied. “I don't scare that easily.”

—

Outside,
the men fell back into a conversation Anna couldn't follow. Emilio Luna had not created the Grasshopper masks. Anna was sure of it. When they paused, she asked if Ricardo Rodríguez lived nearby.

“He's dead,” Emilio Luna told her. “But his widow lives down the street.”

“She sells masks?”

“It's possible.”

“Señora Rodríguez is special, but don't worry,” said the carver. In Spanish,
especial
meant “strange.” “She stands by the fence all day praying.”

Salvador frowned. “You shouldn't go alone.”

The three of them held still to listen. A turkey crowed. The breeze touched the trees. Anna said she would be just a few minutes.

“Do not lose yourself,” Salvador said. “Or your guide will have to rescue you.”

She smiled. “I've been waiting to be found.”

On the street, walking away, alone, she checked her phone. Two texts.

The first, David:
U in Mexico. WTF?

The second, her father:
Success?

He'd mastered the question mark.

Just wrapping things up,
she typed back to her father. How long could she sustain this bluff? Anna took two steps, imagined David and Clarissa, the guest bed. She grabbed her phone, typed furiously:
Sex is the biggest nothing of all time—Andy Warhol.
She pressed send, watched the phone deliver the text to Daniel Ramsey.

—

With her tattered dress
and stick limbs, the old woman looked like a witch from a fairy tale. A black lace shawl encircled her gaunt face, and her lips puckered like the tie end of a balloon. She clung to the
chicken-wire fence, muttering. At the sight of Anna, she beckoned with a shriveled hand.

“Ven. Ven. Se venden máscaras.”

The yard was a mess of rusty cans and slops. A gray cat stood on a chair, tail curled like a question mark. The air smelled of burning plastic. Anna summoned her nerve.

“Buenas tardes.”
Anna opened the gate with forced cheer. Maybe the old woman had dementia. Had news of the stabbing reached her? Had anything reached her at all?

The crone motioned with an impatient
“Sí, sí,
ven”
and led Anna to a hut across the yard. Anna ducked under a crossbeam, breathed in the stink of peat or feces. As her eyes adjusted, she saw they were in an outhouse shrouded with blankets. Plants dripped from the ceiling. The plastic toilet seat rested on a wooden box. A crusty-eyed bulldog appeared and perched at the woman's side, drooling.

The old woman had five masks: three tigers, a Moor, and a wolf. No Centurions.

“Qué bonito,”
Anna murmured, though they weren't
bonito
at all. She picked up a tiger, brushed off its dirty face. The paint job was sloppy.
How sad
.
This is all she has to sell.
Anna would make a lousy collector; the worse someone's merchandise, the more compelled she felt to buy it. She infuriated David by coming home with bruised apples and wilted bouquets.

Anna asked the name of the artist.

“
Mi primo.
I have one other mask. Very special. Wait here.”

The woman evaporated into the gloom. Anna sighed. She should never have come. Just when she'd decided to buy the Moor out of charity, then make a graceful exit, the crone returned and thrust a heavy mask into her hands, saying: “Very old and valuable. Stone.”

It was the death mask.

It couldn't be, but it was. Montezuma's death mask—or an excellent copy. She turned it over, incredulous. Snakes. Warts. Red back. Splintering resin.

Anna searched the old woman's face. Her yellow, bloodshot eyes. She might have hepatitis. She might be insane. The click of bugs grew louder. The dog panted. It was too much. The murder and now this. Anna couldn't figure all the angles, conjugate verbs, decide what to do.

“It's beautiful,” she said again, buying time.

This mask must be a reproduction. A knock-off. The Tepito gunman had taken a photo of Malone's mask, made a copy, which had somehow wound up with this lunatic crone in an outhouse in San Juan del Monte. The crone must come from a family of frauds. No doubt Daniel Ramsey had stood in this very hovel and handed over great sums for worthless art.

“Turquesa. Muy vieja. ¿Cuánto me da?”

“I am sorry.” Anna said.
“No puedo comprarla.”

Her rejection set off a torment of wailing. The smell of basil and cigar lodged against the back of Anna's throat. She fought back a gag.

“
Mi
princesa.
I make you good price. Fifteen hundred pesos.”

Anna laid the mask on the floor. “
Señora
, this mask is not authentic.” Her voice gentle, but firm. “It's a reproduction.”

As soon as Anna had said the reasonable thing, it lost all power to convince. A glorious vision blossomed in its place. The looter had been wrong: The Tepito gunman didn't work for Thomas Malone. He worked for himself. He'd brought the mask to the mountains, to this woman, who was selling it because she didn't know its real value. Or she was scared of Reyes. Or she was desperate for money. All of which
meant Anna had been seducing the wrong man, barking up the wrong chapel.

Montezuma's mask was here.

Ambition surged inside her. A desire not unlike cocaine, the toxic dribble that teases the back of the throat. She knelt, picked up the mask. Its good eye bored into her.
Take me before someone else does.

Anna pulled out a thousand pesos. Her hands were clumsy. “
Bueno,
señora.
This is all the money I have, but if it is sufficient, I will—”

The woman snatched the money and stuffed it in her empty bra.
“Que Dios te bendiga.”
She lifted a large wooden cross off the wall. Anna assumed this, too, was for sale, but the old woman swung the cross at Anna's face. She ducked but the edge of the wood caught her cheek. With a cry, Anna turned and ran out of the hut, across the yard, around a lumbering pig.
I am going to die here. Óscar Reyes Carrillo is going to jump out of that hut with a gun.

Yard. Door. Street. Dirt road. Potholes. Only then did she dare turn around. The hag had returned to the fence, tobacco fingers twinkling as she crossed herself, mustard eyes rolling as she recited the incantatory prayer whose sorrow always filled Anna with unease.
Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amen.

A short woman with a worried expression passed Anna on the road. In one hand, she carried white day lilies. In the other, a man's wallet.

Walking back to Emilio Luna's house, Anna composed herself, slowed her breathing. Best not to tell Salvador about the mask. Fact:
People lie most often to the people they are closest to.
Another fact:
Every fourth conversation contains a falsehood.
Besides, this wasn't a blatant lie, but a lie of omission. A slinky black dress of a lie. A push-up bra. A
cigarette snuck in an alley. An affair in the guest room. Two people in a single bed.

What happened to your cheek?

I snagged it on a rosebush.

Did you get one?

One what?

A rose?

No.

Next time, then.
Salvador would smile.
Next time you'll get even.

A terrifying wail emanated from the old woman's house. Anna kept going, chanting her own sort of Rosary, a prayer that shot into the sky, a firecracker calling out to God, who answered only in smoke.
I have the mask now. Now I have the mask.

—

When Salvador dropped her off
back at the hotel, he invited her to visit his studio the next day. He was shy, almost awkward, until he kissed her. The kiss was gentle, but sure, and it spread through her body, warm, liquid, and she thought,
The simple things are the most amazing.
When he pulled back, he laid his hand over her cut cheek, as if he could heal her wound.