Genius Read online

  My sister and I once had an English nurse who was almost as ladylike as Alistair St. Regis. Nanny always said “serviette” for “napkin” and “convenience” for “toilet” and “abdomen”—pronounced ab-do-men, which sounded even more refined—for “stomach.” She also described Al Capone as “most uncouth” and Loeb and Leopold as “two very naughty college boys” and Ruth Snyder as “by no means a lady.” Watching St. Regis with his precise table manners—the choreography of knife and fork, the dainty bite-sized pieces, the crooked finger as he raised his glass, the prim blottings of his pursed lips with the napkin (or serviette)—took me right back to the nursery. And when it came to the pretty euphemism, the delicate turn of phrase, Alistair St. Regis made our old nurse sound like Belle Barth. His speech, beneath its garnish of elegancies, bits of bad French, and bogus Britishisms picked up during his years with Starr, seemed to me to be rural Pennsylvania or New Jersey with a liberal larding of elocution lessons—“take a cup of air but only use a spoonful . . . pear-shaped vowels . . . when in doubt always choose the middle A” and so on. But not put off by the vulgarity of his affectations, I kept plying and prying, and pretty soon the whole story was out. In somewhat more detail than the Recent History of Leander Starr that I have outlined before, St. Regis gave us to understand that the fiasco in Rome concerned an “extremely tem-per-a-men-til Eyetalian screen personidge.” The bustup in the south of France was caused by “my imployer’s inordinunt love of Dame Chance” (pronounced “Damn Shaunnessy”) “at the wheel of fortune in Monte Carlo.” Upon digging deeper, I learned that Starr had dropped half a million francs which he did not have at roulette (pronounced “roo-lay”) and had been forced to flit by moonlight. In English pictures the trouble had been caused by “a drastic differince of opinion between he and a fem-un-un star that shall be nameless” and on television “a misunderstanding concerning the budgit and my imployer’s ixpense account.” They’d raced in and out of a lot of other countries as well.

  Over stingers, which St. Regis had half-heartedly tried to refuse, not that he could do much more by then than keep his head off the table, I got a few more details. The Department of Internal Revenue was still hot on Starr’s tail, so that he couldn’t return to the States even though he had dozens of good offers in Hollywood. Two wives were after him for back alimony, and he was also up to his eyeballs in unpaid bills all over the world.

  “And the tragic de-new-mint of it all, Mr. Dennis, Mrs. Dennis,” St. Regis said slurringly, “is that had my imployer but heeded my financial advice many years ago, he would today be a gentlemun of great wealth.”

  “And so what’s he doing down here in Mexico?”

  “There is no place else that the poor gentlemun can go to, Mr. Dennis. He is a hunted anna-mull. There is a terrible lady that is very wealthy and wants to marry him. . . .”

  “Wouldn’t that solve some of his problems? About how rich?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Mrs. Po . . . well, I would per-fer not to devulge the party’s identity, but she is not at all the sort of lady with who Mr. Starr should enter into any kind of personal relationship.”

  “Better dead than wed?”

  “Per-cisely. Oh, I do enjoy your jokes, Mr. Dennis. We was—were—residing in Saint Morris, Switzerland, when I read your latest book and I must say that . . .”

  “Does Starr owe you money?” I asked.

  “Well, really,” my wife said. “Talk about nose trouble!”

  With a certain noble dignity St. Regis said, “Mr. Dennis, I have been in Mr. Starr’s imploy for the past quarter of a century. If he has not been able to recompense me in full during the recent years of financial distress, I know that he will ummediately when he regains his former affluence, for he is a man of honor and his word is as good as . . .”

  My wife had a terrible coughing fit and had to be thumped on the back. I guess she was feeling no pain either.

  “But if Starr isn’t paying you, how can the two of you afford to live in a clip joint like Casa Ximinez, and how can you afford to come to a place like El Paseo?”

  “While you’re about it, why don’t you ask Mr. St. Regis the results of his last Wasserman test, dear?” my wife said.

  “Fortunately, Mr. Dennis—or perhaps I should say unfortunately—my Awnt Bessie, that raised me after I lost my folks, passed away and left me as her sole heir. She was a beautician in Alhambra, New Jersey. I have always admired beauty-ful things, Mr. Dennis—good restaurants, stylishly dressed ladies and gentlemin, lovely florial arrangemunts, elegunt surroundings. That is why I selected the apartment Mr. Starr now occupies, and once a week I allow myself the luxury of dining at a . . .”

  “You chose the Casa Ximinez?”

  “Yes, sir. It has a certain jenny-say-coy about it. Señorita Ximinez owes my imployer a great debt. She was nothing but Iztic trash before my imployer developed her stellar potentials.”

  “She still is,” my wife murmured.

  “Mr. Starr’s great cinema, Yucatán Girl, was made down here. The climate is selubrious. My imployer is a sick man, Mr. Dennis, frankly between you and I, he has lost the will to work. A certain influential Mexican producer—you may know the name—a Señor Aristido González has contacted Mr. Starr about filming a . . .”

  “González?” I said. “Why, he’s almost as crooked as . . .”

  “Therefore, I took it upon myself to bring Mr. Starr to Mexico so that he can regain the fortune and reputation that are so rightfully his.”

  “Do you mean to say that out of the money your uncle left you . . .”

  “My awnt. Awnt Bessie.”

  “Out of the money your aunt left you you’re picking up the tab for Starr’s visit to Mexico?”

  “It . . . it seemed the least I could do, Mr. Dennis.”

  “But why?”

  “Because, Mr. Dennis, Mr. Starr is a great director, and I have always wanted to be an actor.”

  He rose unsteadily to his feet, swayed dangerously, and was helped tenderly out of the restaurant and into a taxi by two solicitous waiters.

  III

  The next day was a Saturday, and from the way we felt, one that will live in infamy. Many visitors to Mexico City find that being eight thousand feet up makes a single drink do the work of three. My wife and I are constituted differently. We’ve discovered—or at least like to believe—that we can drink much more at that altitude than we can at sea level, that we get along on far less sleep and that we never have hangovers. However, that Saturday was a dazzling exception.

  I woke up well after eleven feeling exactly like death. And it didn’t make things much better to find a pot of cold, muddy coffee parked on the bedside table. (Guadalupe always brings the coffee at seven thirty, regardless of whether we’re asleep, awake, or even there.) I lowered one tremulous leg out of bed, got weakly to my feet, skidded and landed on the cold tile floor. It was then I realized that I had a shattering headache. I picked myself up, too dispirited to curse, and shuddered into my robe. I looked at myself in the tin-framed mirror and recognized what I was seeing—a gigantic hangover. The red-to-yellow eyes, the pouches beneath them, the crease across my forehead from lying flat on my face, the beard awry from having been slept on the wrong way—all the signs of the real sockdolager. Other signs were the suit I had been wearing, hung up much too meticulously; the shoes, the shirt, the socks, the tie all arranged on a chair as though I might have been trimming a window at Brooks Brothers. Sober, I’m far more casual about undressing. True, we had been drinking way out of our league most of the day and all of the night before, but this was the kind of morning-after that hadn’t happened to me for years. I shook four aspirins out into my trembling hand, popped them into my mouth, tried to swallow them, found that they were stuck halfway down my throat, discovered that the water carafe had been emptied—or, more likely, had never been filled—washed the aspirins down with half a cup of Guadalupe’s frigid coffee, gagged, and then staggered down the stairway, through the library, across the hall,
the length of the living room, and into the pink bathroom to throw up. So began my day.

  My wife, who felt little better, was already up and swaying over the kitchen stove where she was wanly trying to brew up a fresh pot of potable coffee. The noise and the crowds were unbelievable. Guadalupe, her daughter, and grandchildren were all quarreling violently over something that I took to be the cost of a first-communion dress. I can’t imagine why, when they knew perfectly well that Mr. and Mrs. Sucker would end up paying for it. Guadalupe’s cousin, who sold lottery tickets, and her uncle, the vigilante, were having a second breakfast of rice and beans, pan dulce, café con leche, and pulque. The tzinzontles were chattering furiously in their cage. This may have been because a stray cat had wandered in and was contemplating them hungrily through the bars. Perro was barking from some place in Madame X’s cavernous apartment, and Loro had flown up into the jacaranda tree and was screaming while Madame X’s mother was screaming for Abelardo to bring a ladder and get the parrot down. Out in the street there was a terrible cacophony of bugles and drums and every now and then the clanging of a glockenspiel. It happened to be a hundred school children all dressed in white, flourishing red, white, and green Mexican flags, and all shouting at once while two hysterical schoolteachers tried to shout above the noise. It was Flag Day or Revolution Day or something like that. Mexico has even more parades than New York City, and I can never keep track of what illustrious occasion it happens to be. All I wanted that day was for everyone to shut up and go. I made a lunge for the News and grabbed it just as Guadalupe was about to wrap her grandchildren’s lunches in it. We subscribe to two newspapers—the News in English for us and the Zócalo, a sort of Spanish-language National Enquirer or News of the World, overflowing with murder, violence, and scandal, for Guadalupe. But we hardly ever get to see our own newspaper before Guadalupe has lined her bird cage with it. When it comes to the Zócalo, however, she washes her hands carefully, sits down for two hours to read every word of it, then presses it with a warm iron and sends one of her grandchildren out to resell it.

  After an eternity our coffee was ready. My wife and I picked our way through the rush-hour traffic and lurched out to the patio. It was a lovely sunny day—it’s always a lovely sunny day. I set the tray down on a rickety tile-topped table, and we fell into our chairs. I looked up at the cloudless sky and saw a swarm of vultures circling the Casa Ximinez.

  “They’re back,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “The vultures.”

  “They always know before we do,” my wife said, lifting her coffee cup unsteadily to her lips.

  “Well, I hope they take me first. It’s been a pleasant life up till today. Now I’m ready to go.”

  “And I want to go with you.”

  “I don’t suppose the children will miss us much. They’re practically grown up and much more self-sufficient than most.”

  “More self-sufficient than I am,” my wife said, a terrible tremor sending a shudder through her entire body.

  “My will is in order. There’s enough money socked away for our funeral expenses . . .”

  “The vultures will make that unnecessary. That’s what they’re for.”

  “. . . and to finish the children’s education,” I said, fighting back a wave of flatulence. “My sister will be a good guardian.”

  “Probably better than we’ve been. At least she’s not a lush. What do you suppose got into us yesterday?”

  “About a gallon apiece—not counting ice cubes. Well, there’ll be no work done today. I’m going to get this coffee down—if I can—and then back to bed. I suggest you join me.”

  “Oh no you’re not,” my wife said. “You’ve forgotten what day this is.”

  “It’s Flag Day or Insurgents’ Day or Revolution Day. No matter, the local parade just begins here. They’ll be gone in a couple of minutes and then we can . . .”

  “I wasn’t speaking of fiestas. Today is the day we’re going to the Maitland-Grims’s for lunch.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, “why?”

  “Why? Why, to meet Lady Jones or Lady Joy or Lady Somebody. Bunty’s handwriting is so affected I couldn’t make it out on the invitation. Anyhow it’s to meet whatever visiting V.I.P. she’s hooked.”

  “Perhaps it’s the Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, or the Duchess of Argyll. They’re everywhere. Well, I don’t care. I don’t think I can go through with it—not Bunty and not today.”

  “Neither do I,” my wife said, “but I’m afraid we’re going to have to. The Bunty Maitland-Grim Celebrity Service has spread the net all over the district for Lady Whatever. She’s tried to trap Dolores del Río and Mr. Riley to represent Drama; the Juan O’Gormans as Architecture and Horticulture; the Denis Bourkes are to portray Gay Society and Procter & Gamble. Dr. Julia Baker is to come as Medicine and a Patroness of the Arts.”

  “It sounds more like a pageant than a party. Do you suppose she nabbed any of them?”

  “I don’t know, but she got us. We’re to represent Contemporary Light Fiction, and it’s too late to . . . Oh Lord! Here it comes again!”

  I turned around and saw Madame X and her old harridan of a mother bearing down on us. Although the tenants of Casa Ximinez lease their apartments by the month, we pay in quarterly installments every Saturday at twelve noon sharp—and in cash, no checks. In this way I figure that Madame X collects thirteen months’ income every year instead of just twelve, as some months, such as this March, have five Saturdays instead of four. The paying of rent to the mistress of the manor has become a tradition like May Day in Moscow or Dr. Scholl’s Foot Comfort Week. Madame X gets dressed to look as much like a streetwalker as possible, and with Mamacita functioning as a combination lady in waiting, duenna, and cashier, she makes her majestic progression to each of her serfs, starting with Apartamiento 1 (ours) and eventually winding up at Number 6. Then she gets into her antique Hispano-Suiza touring car, with Abelardo at the wheel, and is driven off to some expensive restaurant such as Passy or Jena or Quid where, every inch the movie queen, she makes a grand entrance, lunches in solitary splendor, and then has a big scene in gutter Spanish over the bill. We caught her act one Saturday at La Cava, where they have the added advantage of a circular staircase to descend, and it was priceless. The only trouble is that most people can’t remember back thirty years to her only film, and the few who can don’t recognize the grotesque she has become.

  On this particular Saturday, Madame X was in the pink—and I mean exactly what I say. She was wearing a tight pink dress of some very sleazy-looking material, cut in such a way that her buttocks and navel were in perfect bas relief. With each step the skirt would ride up a bit higher, treating us to a splendid view of knee caps and of rose-colored stockings sheer enough to display a virile forest of black stubble. Her legs were never Catalina Ximinez’s best point. Her neckline plunged down far enough to afford a glimpse of the grayest pink brassiere I’ve ever seen. She wore a lot of pink-glass jewelry; long pink gloves from which one varnished fingernail protruded; and pink satin slippers slightly run down at the heels. This ravishing getup was topped off by a boa, muff, and busby of soiled pink fox. Perro was tricked out with a pink suede collar and leash. In comparison with this molting bird of Paradise, her mother looked as though she had just stopped in to say good-by on her way to the poorhouse. Being completely toothless, Mamacita had the face of a nutcracker. She wore a rusty old black dress, thick black stockings, and high black Keds. What hair she had left was pure white and skinned back in sparse strands to a meager little knot, her coffee-colored scalp shining through. When outside Casa Ximinez, her head was always covered by a black rebozo, which was perhaps all to the good. Mamacita carried her customary black reticule into which the rent monies were dumped and from which she produced whatever change was forthcoming.

  “Buenos días!” Madame X said in her cockatoo screech, gold fillings glinting in the sunlight. (We were her favorite tenants of the season, as we had taken the largest apartme
nt for four full months and because we remembered to have our pesos on hand every Saturday.)

  “Buenos días,” we muttered colorlessly.

  “Ai aff come for de . . .”

  “I know,” I said, getting painfully to my feet, “the rent. El aquiler.” I went unsteadily toward the apartment and my wallet.

  “’Ow gude you spik the Spanish,” Madame X screamed. Actually, I speak about half as much Spanish as I speak Urdu. I toiled back with two five-hundred-peso notes and handed them to Madame X, who counted them twice and then handed them to her mother. Mamacita also counted them and then popped them into her reticule.

  “Tonk you, señor,” Madame X said with a flirtatious wriggle. “Olues Ai say to Mamacita—to my mowder—Ai say Señor y Señora Daneece exactly dey luke lak Maximiliano y Carlotta.” Then she repeated the sentiment in Mayan—or at least I guess that’s what she said to the old crone—and they both went off into fits of giggles.

  So far so good. Now there was nothing left but for Mamacita to get off the only four words of English she knew. I could see the pleated lips, the toothless old gums, working up to her gala performance. She licked her white whiskers delicately, wound up for the pitch, and then let us have it. “Mai . . . dotter . . . beeg . . . star.” Having pulled off this amazing accomplishment, she cackled delightedly with a fine show of brown gums. She would repeat it six times that day, just as she did every Saturday—once for each apartment. Having collected from us, they moved on to Apartamiento 2—the current home of Leander Starr.

  Terrible as we both felt, we sat there in the patio and watched with a certain fascination as Madame X and Mamacita approached the door of Number 2. It was closed, and the apartment looked very, very vacant. Almost kittenishly, Señorita Ximinez knocked. There was silence. She knocked again. Still no reply.