the bottle and, reaching for his crutches, hoisted himself to his feet. If he was going up to the hotel he had to move now. Two reasons. One: he would be less likely to run into La Huesuda and have to endure another lecture on his clumsiness and his sexual inadequacy (she always slept in the afternoon). Two: the Waterboys made deliveries to Frenchtown after lunch and if he timed it right he would be able to hitch a ride on the back of their cart.
He was half-way down the stairs when his good foot caught in the banisters. In an attempt to save the damaged one, he almost toppled headlong and broke everything else. He was beginning to lose his faith in manmade structures. Maybe he should forget about playing the piano for the time being. Maybe he should forget the whole damn thing. Half-way down the stairs, he stood quite motionless, the sweat cooling on his face.
There had been a terrible winter once, in the Sierras with his father, when they had dug hole after hole, when they had moved earth, washed it, moved earth, washed it, week after week of bloodied hands and all fora couple of dollars a day, just barely enough to keep them from dying. Yet there was always someone near by, someone in the next placer or someone they just plain heard about, who had lifted sagebrush at the edge of a creek and found so many pieces of gold among the roots that he had taken the next ship to New York to live like an American King Solomon. It did not matter how bad things got. There was always something to keep you from trailing home to a life with no shine in it. Though maybe he should track Pablo down before the week was out, and speak to him about a room on the ground floor, just until his foot was mended.
Chapter 7
From batsâ wings at dusk, whispering through the deadened air, to the stubborn clanking of water churns at dawn, Santa SofÃa was a place of incongruous sounds, but no sound was more incongruous, perhaps, than the sound of Bizetâs
Carmen
being played on an out-of-tune piano in the middle of the afternoon. Suzanne found the piano downstairs, pushed against the wall in a distant corner of the lobby. She lifted the lid. The white keys were as discoloured as a horseâs teeth. Two black keys had gone missing altogether. The piano did not look as if it had been used for years. And who would play
Carmen,
anyway? People thought it vulgar, hysterical. She stood beside the maroon piano stool, one elbow cupped in her hand, her fingers curled against her chin. Perhaps her dreams had served the music up to her. Perhaps she had imagined it.
The Hôtel de Paris was as luxurious as she and Théo could have hoped for, given the desolate surroundings, and the suite of rooms in which they had taken up temporary residence was the best in the hotel. There were armchairs upholstered in striped damask and floors of polished oak, and all the walls had been lined with silk â the drawing-room in peacock-blue, the bedroom in scarlet. The brass bed was said to have belonged to one of Maximilianâs generals. Théo thought the décor more appropriate to a bordello than a hotel, and certainly, waking in that scarlet chamber on the first morning, Suzanne could not imagine where she was. Then she noticed the sky, a flawless blue, immaculate and hard, and she remembered. âMexico,â she whispered to herself. âIâm in Mexico.â
She saw very little of Théo during the week of their arrival, but that was only to be expected. She did not mind â in fact, if anything it suited her. She was able to take the days at her own pace.
In the mornings she sat on the hotel veranda. From her table she could look down a barren hillside of rocks and cactus to the narrow coastal strip where most of the townâs industry was to be found. Beyond that jumble of brown buildings lay the Sea of Cortez, palest blue, too lazy to achievea tide, yet capable, so Théo had told her, of the most sudden and violent storm that
He was half-way down the stairs when his good foot caught in the banisters. In an attempt to save the damaged one, he almost toppled headlong and broke everything else. He was beginning to lose his faith in manmade structures. Maybe he should forget about playing the piano for the time being. Maybe he should forget the whole damn thing. Half-way down the stairs, he stood quite motionless, the sweat cooling on his face.
There had been a terrible winter once, in the Sierras with his father, when they had dug hole after hole, when they had moved earth, washed it, moved earth, washed it, week after week of bloodied hands and all fora couple of dollars a day, just barely enough to keep them from dying. Yet there was always someone near by, someone in the next placer or someone they just plain heard about, who had lifted sagebrush at the edge of a creek and found so many pieces of gold among the roots that he had taken the next ship to New York to live like an American King Solomon. It did not matter how bad things got. There was always something to keep you from trailing home to a life with no shine in it. Though maybe he should track Pablo down before the week was out, and speak to him about a room on the ground floor, just until his foot was mended.
Chapter 7
From batsâ wings at dusk, whispering through the deadened air, to the stubborn clanking of water churns at dawn, Santa SofÃa was a place of incongruous sounds, but no sound was more incongruous, perhaps, than the sound of Bizetâs
Carmen
being played on an out-of-tune piano in the middle of the afternoon. Suzanne found the piano downstairs, pushed against the wall in a distant corner of the lobby. She lifted the lid. The white keys were as discoloured as a horseâs teeth. Two black keys had gone missing altogether. The piano did not look as if it had been used for years. And who would play
Carmen,
anyway? People thought it vulgar, hysterical. She stood beside the maroon piano stool, one elbow cupped in her hand, her fingers curled against her chin. Perhaps her dreams had served the music up to her. Perhaps she had imagined it.
The Hôtel de Paris was as luxurious as she and Théo could have hoped for, given the desolate surroundings, and the suite of rooms in which they had taken up temporary residence was the best in the hotel. There were armchairs upholstered in striped damask and floors of polished oak, and all the walls had been lined with silk â the drawing-room in peacock-blue, the bedroom in scarlet. The brass bed was said to have belonged to one of Maximilianâs generals. Théo thought the décor more appropriate to a bordello than a hotel, and certainly, waking in that scarlet chamber on the first morning, Suzanne could not imagine where she was. Then she noticed the sky, a flawless blue, immaculate and hard, and she remembered. âMexico,â she whispered to herself. âIâm in Mexico.â
She saw very little of Théo during the week of their arrival, but that was only to be expected. She did not mind â in fact, if anything it suited her. She was able to take the days at her own pace.
In the mornings she sat on the hotel veranda. From her table she could look down a barren hillside of rocks and cactus to the narrow coastal strip where most of the townâs industry was to be found. Beyond that jumble of brown buildings lay the Sea of Cortez, palest blue, too lazy to achievea tide, yet capable, so Théo had told her, of the most sudden and violent storm that
Similar Books
