Evil Eye (4 page)

“The world will end, too, one day. Fortunately, I don't plan on being here.”

Here was
I
, and not
we.
In his careless fantasy of the apocalypse, Austin wasn't including any wife.

After one of Austin's outbursts Mariana was sure that Austin would let her go. And she wasn't sure that she really wanted to remain with him, in so precarious and unstable a marriage.

Then again she thought, chilled,
Without this man, I am nothing. I am a daughter/orphan. I don't exist.

After the spinach incident they'd had a strained dinner together on the deck overlooking the Pacific sunset: Mariana hadn't dared to speak, and Austin had scarcely glanced at her. He'd been preoccupied with other thoughts, that Mariana supposed had little to do with her, who'd entered his life so relatively recently.

He will tell me to leave. Is that what he told the others? It's over, please leave. This is my house.

But that night, when she was preparing to sleep in one of the guest rooms, and not in their bedroom, assuming that Austin didn't want her anywhere near him, there came Austin storming to the doorway to rebuke her.

“What kind of game is this! My wife belongs with me, in my bed.”

My wife
. In his state of supreme disgust Austin seemed to have forgotten Mariana's name.

“Hel-lo! You are Mariana—the new wife?”

The query was in such heavily accented English, the glamorous white-haired woman's expression so droll and curious, like that of an animated Kewpie doll, Mariana had a fear that she was being mocked even as the woman thrust out her small-boned beringed hand to shake Mariana's hand.

“I am Ines Zambranco, and this is my niece Hortensa.”

“Yes—hello . . .”

“Unless—we have come early? Is Austin not ready to see us? Hortensa and I can go away somewhere and return a little later of course—if you would wish this.”

Mariana had hurried to answer the ringing doorbell and was breathless. It was so, Ines Zambranco and her niece had arrived more than an hour early, and Austin was in another part of the house, changing his clothes.

Mariana stammered, “Of course, come in—please. You're not at all early . . .”

“But I think yes, perhaps we are? Hortensa and I, we have come by taxi, you see. From the airport. And it is not possible to time an arrival perfectly, in such circumstances.”

“No, oh no—of course not. Please . . .”

Mariana was smiling nervously at both women—too confused to shake hands with Ines's niece who was standing beside Ines on the front stoop, a head taller than Ines, just slightly behind her, like a servant, burdened with a shoulder bag, a tote bag, and a large roller-suitcase. Mariana was trying not to think
They have come early deliberately. They want to unsettle me.

Mariana looked from Hortensa back to Ines: this time, Mariana nearly fainted.

The gaily chattering Ines Zambranco was missing an eye. Where her right eye had been there was an empty socket.

It was a profoundly shocking moment: for you were led to look from the left eye, which was expertly made up, enlarged with eye shadow in shades of mauve and taupe, and outlined in black mascara, to the missing eye, where you saw what appeared to be a shadowy emptiness; your instinct was to look back at once to the left eye, that was gazing at you, alert with consciousness, and with a kind of merriment as well, as if the little white-haired woman with the missing eye, perfumed and elegantly attired as she was, knew perfectly well what you were thinking, what a shock you'd had—though of course, smiling fixedly at her, determined to behave as if nothing were wrong, you would not acknowledge the missing eye.

Yet—Mariana could not prevent it—she glanced back at the empty socket, which had been made up with cosmetics as well, black mascara outlining the socket's edge and an arched eyebrow penciled in above, a subtle combination of white, gray, pale brown that matched the other perfectly drawn eyebrow. The effect was both sinister and glamorous—for Ines Zambranco was a dramatic presence, looking much younger than her age of more than sixty, with a white-powdered face like a geisha's, and suffused with a sort of vivacious merriment like a naughty child.

Even Ines's white hair wasn't merely an older woman's
white hair—
it had been cut short and bristling like a rock star's punk hair and when you looked more closely, you saw that the “white” wasn't a soft white but a metallic white, obviously dyed.

And the gold sandals on Ines's tiny feet: three-inch heels that brought the flamboyant little woman to a precarious height of about five feet two. Her miniature toes peeped out, the nails polished ruby-red to match her fingernail polish and her pursed smiling lips.

“Please—come inside. And your suitcases—shall I . . .”

Though she'd been anticipating Ines's visit for several days, Mariana wasn't prepared for such a surprise: why hadn't Austin warned her that his former wife was disfigured? (Unless Austin didn't know? Was that possible? The missing eye had to mean cancer—didn't it?)

And there was Hortensa: plain, dour, with skinned-back hair and small close-set eyes, flat-heeled ballerina slippers, mud-colored polyester trousers and matching jacket, about Mariana's age and height but at least fifty pounds heavier. In her sullen face Mariana's bright smile was rudely deflected and in response to Mariana's greeting there came a barely audible mutter.

Mariana led their guests into the foyer. She was deeply embarrassed, anxious. She'd seen that Ines was amused by her discomfort over the missing eye. And whatever Ines was saying to Hortensa, in staccato Spanish, was probably not flattering to her, the
new, young wife.

Mariana wanted to call for Austin to announce that their guests had arrived but she knew that Austin wouldn't like to be interrupted. In his bedroom, or in his bathroom, preparing to be seen by others, Austin did not care to be hurried in his elaborate personal grooming.

Mariana took the heavy tote bag from Hortensa and led the women into the guest wing of the house, which had windows facing the Pacific. All the while Ines was exclaiming, chattering brightly—Mariana couldn't follow her words, so heavily accented they might have been Spanish—while Hortensa followed in her aunt's wake, flat-footed and unsmiling.

You could see a family resemblance between the older woman and the younger: but where Ines's features were delicate, and the geisha-white cosmetic mask gave her a bizarre sort of histrionic beauty, Hortensa's features were coarsened and plain; in defiance of her aunt's glamour the niece wore no makeup on her sallow skin, had done nothing to soften the effect of her coarse thick eyebrows, and refused to stretch her thin, flat, colorless lips into anything approaching a courteous smile.

Where the aunt was petite, a doll of a woman who couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds, the niece was hefty, stolid as a young heifer; inside the mud-colored polyester jacket her breasts were enormous as swollen, sagging fruit.

Mariana's first houseguests, in her new marriage! She was feeling just slightly faint, Ines's perfume like a rich, overripe fruit wafted to her nostrils.

She hoped that Austin would hear Ines's high-pitched voice or the sharp clatter of her shoes against the tile floor. Mariana wanted to scream at him
Come here! Help me! Your wife has arrived.

“Aus-tin! How good to see you! And not changed at all—or almost. A year flies by quickly, does it?—so much happens, yet no
change
.”

Whatever Ines was chattering in her maddening bright voice Mariana couldn't follow. She saw that Austin greeted his former wife with a forced sort of hearty enthusiasm, as he might have greeted a visitor to the Institute whom he knew slightly; with a stiff little smile he stooped to allow her to brush her lips against both his cheeks, leaving a ruby smear on both cheeks that would have annoyed him greatly if he'd known. For the evening Ines had changed into a startling costume—a puckered strapless top in deep purple satin, incongruous with her bony shoulders and thin, flaccid upper arms, and a flimsy skirt like cobwebs, cut at an angle so that it looked torn. Around her thin neck was a jade necklace that had to be, Mariana surmised, a gift from Austin, for it very much resembled the jade necklace Mariana herself was wearing, though it wasn't so ornate or so heavy as Mariana's. Ines's alarmingly bare shoulders gave her a fragile but dignified look. Inside the puckered satin, her breasts were small as if shrunken.

The shadowy socket where her right eye should have been gave her face a squinting asymmetrical cast like a female face in a Picasso painting. Yet you could see that Ines had been beautiful, once; and had retained the image of that beauty even now.

What a strange couple they were: the bristly-white-haired woman so short, and so petite; the former husband so much larger, looming over her. Ines did suddenly seem, despite her air of frantic gaiety, considerably older than Austin.

And Mariana saw that yes, Austin must have known about Ines's missing eye, for he showed no surprise, still less alarm or concern, at the ghastly sight of the empty socket; in fact he'd barely glanced at Ines's festive face, turning quickly to Hortensa, with a similarly hearty/impersonal greeting and a handshake.

Hortensa made no effort to appear friendly, or even very animated. Neither she nor Austin hugged the other or brushed lips against cheeks. Mariana was impressed with the sulky girl's resistance to Austin's charm. She thought
She is immune to the man and wants him to know.

It was an old sour relationship, Mariana supposed. Austin and Hortensa were linked by marriage, or had once been—obscure relatives thrown together with nothing to say to each other.

Drinks? Would they like drinks? Briskly Austin ushered his guests into the living room, urging them to sit down on the long white-leather sofa facing the view of the city in the distance, the Bay and bridges. In fading sunlight the Golden Gate Bridge shimmered just barely visible.

“Ah! As always—
espectacular
! If there is no worry—shall I say this?—of
el terremoto
.”

Ines remained on her feet speaking lightly, laughing. Mariana knew that
el terremoto
meant
the earthquake
and that this subject stirred in Austin, as in other longtime residents of the San Francisco/Berkeley area, a predictable sort of dismissive laughter.

“Well—it will take more than
el terremoto
to move me from here.”

Mariana had the idea that this was an old issue. Many times, far too many times,
the wife
and
the husband
had spoken of it, and always
the husband
would make the same offhanded reply.

“Mariana, dear—what of you?”

“Yes? What?”

“Does
el terremoto
not frighten you, a little?”

Mariana tried to think. It was a fact, she'd given little thought to the possibility of an earthquake in this precarious hillside dwelling. As she'd given little thought to the possibility of a fire, a flash flood, landslide.

“Mariana is not an alarmist, Ines. She is a practical person—she knows to live
here, now
.”

This was the first time anyone had ever spoken of Mariana as
practical
. And in the third person, in her hearing, as if she were a very young child or in some way incapacitated.

Perhaps it was a fact, Mariana accepted the possibility of an earthquake in this beautiful place as a feature of her marriage. She was so very grateful for the marriage, a mere earthquake could not dissuade her.

“I haven't thought of it, I guess . . . I . . .”

Mariana's voice trailed off lamely. How weak Ines and Hortensa must think she was, this new, young wife of Austin's!

When he'd joined them a few minutes before, Austin had greeted Mariana with a distracted sort of affection. All the while he'd been staring in Ines's direction without exactly looking at Ines, as one might look in the direction of a blinding light without daring to confront it head-on.

Now he glanced at Mariana with a sharp crease of a frown between his eyebrows, as if he had but a vague idea who this person was, and why she was in his living room with his exotic Spanish ex-wife.

Gracelessly Hortensa had lowered her weight onto the sofa, at an end from which the shimmering view wasn't visible. She hadn't troubled to wash her somewhat greasy face or to change for the evening apart from removing the polyester jacket: beneath, she was wearing a rumpled T-shirt, matte black, with a faded sparkly image—a human face of some kind, glaring eyes, wild hair—Beethoven?

While Austin prepared drinks Ines continued to walk about in her clattery high heels, exclaiming at things—old, familiar—new,
bonito
. It was impossible to tell—impossible for Mariana to tell—if the vivacious little woman was sincerely admiring, or subtly mocking; if, drawing her former husband's attention to a sculpted “demon” from Mexico, or a grimacing Cambodian mask, or the lacquered Japanese screen, she meant to remind him cruelly of their shared past, or to congratulate him on having retained some of the beauty of their shared past. She spent some time examining the orchids, the bonsai trees, the little lemon tree.

Mariana thought
She will pick one of the little lemons and put it in her pocket.

But Ines just complimented Austin on his beautiful house —seemingly without irony. Then, recalling Mariana, the new wife, turning to Mariana with a warm smile, to include her as well.

Seeing the empty socket beneath the arched eyebrow, Mariana felt a wave of faintness again.

And the other eye, the remaining eye—bright as reflected glass, beautifully made up and all but winking at the new, young wife.