Читать книгу The Ann Ireland Library - Ann Ireland - Страница 22

How many generations of students have worn down the furniture in the lobby of the Fine Arts Building? Trace heaves herself onto one of the sturdy tables, hitches her pants, and sits cross-legged, so lithe and flexible that one can only remember what it was like to have a body without joints. The box office is closed for the day — no performance tonight. The girl who runs the café is swabbing down the counter, switching off the espresso machine, all animation sucked from her face after an eight-hour shift. Trace thinks, I’ll never have to do a job like that. She watches the staircase at the north end of the lobby. She is waiting for someone and trying to look as if this isn’t so, running a hand over her bristly head. With her long neck and fine features, she manages to appear both street urchin and feminine.

There is the sound of a door shutting on the floor above, and she jerks to attention, hearing a pause followed by the clip-clop of shoes while a man hums to himself. She recognizes the tune: “Amor de mis amores” by Veracruz composer Agustín Lara. There’s the snap of a briefcase closing, then Manuel Juerta appears at the top of the staircase. He’s wearing a Cuban shirt, the kind you don’t tuck in, and he dances down the stairs.

Of course, Manuel sees her sitting there; he may be tired, but he isn’t blind. The empty foyer belongs to a world that will return to its clamour in a few hours, before there’s a chance for a proper airing out. He notes Trace, her naked head vulnerable as a newborn’s, her scruffy feet jammed into flip-flops.

“You,” Juerta says, pointing with a hand clutching a can of beer. He glides like a skater across the tile floor.

Trace pretends to look surprised.

“Where are your colleagues?” Juerta asks.

“At some bar.”

He nods sympathetically, then heads for the front door, hesitates, and turns around. “So you are alone.”

She doesn’t reply. He’s working it out.

“Come,” he beckons.

She dangles one foot.

“Come here.”

She slips off the table, shrugging, as if she might or might not obey, then traipses toward him, aggressively tomboy, so attractive in a natural beauty. He slings an arm over her shoulder and directs her outside into the Montreal night. Juerta doesn’t give a damn who sees them. There are implied rules about fraternizing with competitors, but rules are meant to be broken, and this little girl was waiting for him.

“We will go and visit my good friend Ernesto,” Juerta says, guiding Trace toward the intersection. “You know Ernesto?”

Trace doesn’t.

“Then you will have an adventure.” His arm droops from her shoulder, and they canter across the busy street. Trace wonders if Ernesto is a famous guitarist who lives in Montreal. This city is pandemonium compared to her quiet island village — horns toot, tires squeal, everyone trying to run you down. She peers into open doorways and sees the press of people and cigarette smoke, hears throaty laughter and thudding bass beats. Trace tells herself she’ll find a way to move here or to some other big city. Not a chance she’ll turn into one of those island women growing organic vegetables, selling handcrafted yoga mat sleeves at the fall fair.

Juerta flags a taxi, they jump into the back seat, and Trace thinks, I have no idea where we’re going. The idea excites her. As the cab darts in and out of traffic, Juerta touches her cheek with the back of his hand.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” she lies.

Ninety minutes later Trace yawns, glances at the wall clock, and yawns again. There’s no water left in the cooler — she checked — and she’s studied the framed anatomy chart a dozen times and flipped through copies of Body Mind Magazine with its weird articles on animals as healers and liquid fasts. She gets up, bottom sucking away from the vinyl chair, and walks over yet again to the closed door and listens, ear pressed to the wood. She hears a soft moaning inside followed by a whimper, then another moan. In the background shimmers a soundtrack of fake rain forest, electronic howler monkeys, and digital squawking parrots. She wonders if she should leave, that maybe it’s what he expects. Could be he’s forgotten all about her as he sinks into his treatment.

A burst of laughter erupts from the room, and she pulls back from the door, stuffing hands in her pockets. Should she call him Manuel or Mr. Juerta or even Señor Juerta? Some of the other competitors call him Maestro, a term that thrills her, but she can’t imagine uttering the word.

Are they going to head out to dinner once this is over? Will he pay? She checks her wallet — twenty bucks and it has to last through tomorrow. Maybe he expects her to pony up, he being from a third world country. Don’t think too hard about the naked man on the other side of the door getting his puffy ass kneaded by the muscular Ernesto. What if something creepier is going on in there? Maybe this clinical setting is a front, part of an international operation where they pull in naive girls and it’s the last you hear of them. Trace paces the waiting room pausing only to gaze out the window, fourteen floors above busy St. Catherine Street. This office building must be empty so late in the day. Even if she let out a scream, would anyone hear above the street noise? What if they drop a black hood over her head? She’d hate that.

By the time Juerta pushes open the door, patting his bits of hair down and buttoning his shirt, Trace is in a full-blown panic.

“Señorita,” he says, ignoring her nervous state, “the mighty Ernesto has rearranged my anatomy and now we must eat. Have you had supper?”

How could she have? She’s been hanging out here all this time. Without waiting for a reply, he picks up his briefcase and leads the way down the gloomy corridor toward the elevator. Once inside, he rests his cheek against her shoulder.

“We have survived another day,” he says, and she feels the weight of his head as the elevator lurches down to the lobby.

Dinner is in a Mexican restaurant run by a woman from Durango who keeps bringing on courses of spicy food. No one asks what Trace might like. Juerta helps himself, then urges her to do the same. “In my country it is not easy to eat this well.”

All she knows about Cuba is that Castro is on the brink of death. Maybe he’s dead already. She’d like to ask but doesn’t want to appear stupid. Don’t they drive old cars down there while ancient men sing on street corners and play marimbas?

Manuel seems to be having the time of his life chattering in Spanish to the waitress. The decor of the tiny restaurant consists of a three-dimensional scorpion gripping the stucco wall, its deadly tail pronged upward.

“Do you know what we are talking about?” Manuel asks suddenly.

She reddens. “Not a clue.”

“We are discussing how Lucia, my wife, who is perhaps no longer my wife, says I should stay in this country. Defect.”

“Well you should,” says Trace.

He laughs too heartily, the way people do when something is the opposite of funny.

“Only if you want to,” Trace adds quickly.

The laughter stops, and he leans forward, seizing her hands. “Tell me, young Canadian friend, why I should eliminate my life, my friends, my family, in order to wash onto these shores like a piece of driftwood.”

“You wouldn’t be driftwood,” she protests. “Just about anyone here would hire you to play concerts or teach or —”

He squeezes her hands once, still holding on. “This is very interesting. Tell me more.”

Is he making fun of her? “You could write your own ticket.”

Abruptly he lets go. “A one-way ticket.”

The waitress hovers, lowering a basket of hot tortillas wrapped in a checkered napkin. Manuel says something, and the waitress replies in a way that sounds as if she’s reciting from a poem or a song.

Trace picks at the tube of squash filled with some kind of white cheese. When is he going to say something about her playing? She knows she’s good. She won the Kiwanis Festival, regional division, last year and played at the lieutenant governor’s New Year’s levee. Certain people understand music from first breath; she could sing before she could talk.

The waitress reappears to set down jumbo-sized margaritas on the table, and no one asks if Trace is old enough. After running her finger around the rim of the glass and licking her salty fingertip, she takes a generous sip. Tart lime and tequila pucker her mouth into a gasp of pleasure: her first cocktail. Back home it’s straight rye or gin, stolen from some parent’s stash.

“If I don’t return on the date of my visa, maybe I can never go home again,” Manuel says. “Tell me what I should do.”

Trace says, “It would be amazing if you moved here.”

He waits a beat, hops off his chair, and slips in beside her on the banquette, then starts stroking her fuzzy scalp. He’s wanted to do this all evening.

“I could do this all night,” he says.

Staring straight ahead, Trace says, “Prove it.”

The hand stops moving, and he tips her chin to study her face. “You mean this?”

For a moment she wavers, then says, “Sure.”

Trace slouches on the bed in Manuel’s room at the fancy hotel where he insists on being put up, disdaining the cheaper B and Bs where other judges stay. He moves about the space restlessly and pours Trace a glass of water, then one for himself.

“Are you drunk?” he asks.

“No,” she says, though she is a little.

“Too much alcohol since I arrived in this country,” he says, loosening his collar.

He’s wearing a gold chain, like baseball players or rappers. He paces and drums his thigh as if girding himself to say or do something. That’s his guitar case propped in the corner, loaded with airline stickers from all over the world. You’d never guess by the banged-up container what lies inside, the succulent rosewood-and-cedar instrument, chaffed honey-brown by decades of performing. She wonders if he’ll bring it out and play a private recital for her. She decides she will be calm, and that this will be the most amazing night of her life. The buzzing in her head is new. She’s not much of a drinker, not like some of the kids back on the island.

“Water is good?” he asks.

She lifts her glass in salute. “Primo.”

Then he stands before her, knees pressing against hers. “Such a long day, yes?” he says.

Trace smiles, not understanding that he hopes she will go now. She has followed him around all evening and now she’s in this man’s room, the same man everyone watches as he struts down the hallway or huddles in conference with the other judges: Manuel says this, Maestro says that. While other contestants prowl around downtown Montreal, she’s been spending hours solo with Manuel Juerta.

“This is a dangerous place for you, young lady,” he says.

“Yes?”

“Alone in a hotel room with a man you barely know.”

She shrugs, pretending to be unimpressed.

“You should be back in your own room practising.”

She sucks in a breath. He wouldn’t say this if she hadn’t been chosen to head into the finals. No need to practise if she were to be sent packing. Maybe he’ll tell her she’s a rare talent; that’s what people say after they hear her play.

But Manuel’s plump face sags with weariness. Dampness soaks through the cotton shirt that sticks to his muscled back. On his island, buildings never have windows sealed shut. Back home, fragrant sea air follows you everywhere.

He takes her head and squeezes it into his chest.

This is it, she thinks, this is how it begins.

“I am going to telephone a taxi and send you back to the dormitorio,” he says.

But he doesn’t push her away. Instead, his hand lowers to her shoulder blade, and she feels him shift, some adjustment being made.

“So you think you want to stay with some old Cuban guy?” he asks.

She looks into his puffy eyes and wonders how old he is — forty? Fifty? She always knew her life would never be ordinary.

“Answer me,” he says.

She says nothing.

He disappears into the marbled bathroom, and soon she hears the faucets drill water against the tub, then a clank as his belt hits the floor.

She picks up the TV remote and waves it at the screen. It’s that crappy movie where Jennifer Lopez pretends she’s a maid. She turns the sound way down so that she’ll hear when the faucets stop running. New York City must be great, she decides, watching JLo waltz along a Central Park trail in midsummer. If she wins the competition, she’ll make sure they book her into a New York recital hall, one of those fancy places with chandeliers. People will flock to hear a kid from a Canadian island. Well, they might. Her teacher, Trig, will fly down for the event even if she has to pay his fare. She’ll keep her head shaved and won’t slink onstage in some diva gown. She’ll stay authentic to herself.

When the bathroom door creaks open, Trace waits for the Maestro to stride out naked. She tells herself she won’t blink or act surprised, but the truth is she hasn’t exactly done this before.

She snaps off the remote and the movie dies.

He’s hairy, she notes, with stocky legs that he’s crouching to towel dry.

“Now we go to bed,” he says, very matter-of-fact, then reaches over to switch off the light. As he does this, she sneaks a look. Somehow she thought it would all be more pink.

The mattress heaves as Manuel rolls in beside her. “Take this off.” He tugs at her shirt sleeve.

Maybe she was supposed to have done it already, while he was in the shower, and she obeys, turning away. Suddenly, she’s not feeling so great. Perhaps she shouldn’t be here. Not too late to escape. Street light begins to seep through the curtains, and she feels him watching. Off with the shirt. She unhitches her bra, which is a little grotty on day four, then pulls at the hemp pants, lifting her bum so she can slither out without rising from the bed. Underpants, she decides, can stay on for now.

God, it’s actually happening, the mighty deed.

“You headed for breakfast?” It’s Larry the Texan making for the cafeteria, sticking his hands deep in the front pockets of his jeans.

“Not yet,” Trace says. She hardly knows where she is, what day, what month, what year. Her face must be flaming, and her feet coast over the pavement, light as feathers.

Larry squints, trying to stare her down to where he can see her plain. It’s the lobby of the dorm building. She found her way here after sharing a cab with Manuel, after saying goodbye at the iron gates. Her teeth are crud, tongue coated with last night’s meal. Tex has no idea. But he cocks his head and asks with obvious curiosity, “You just coming home?”

Let them think what they think.

Manuel’s chubby leg dropped over hers, a dead weight, and for a minute she thought he’d nodded off. But soon he lifted his head and peered into her face; he smelled of soap and toothpaste.

“I apologize, my young friend,” he said.

For what?

“I think you have not done this before.”

She was quiet, then said, “Not exactly.”

That was when he rolled off and lay staring at the ceiling in the dark hotel room.

“I have,” she said quickly, “but not very often.”

He ran a hand over her bare belly, the calluses on his fingertips pebbling her flesh, making her gasp.

“This is not the scene I compose for you,” he said. “It would be a disappointment.”

Round cheeks, snub nose, curly reddish hair, not what you’d call handsome, but his eyes were beautiful, fringed by long lashes.

“I have a better idea,” he said, looking at her with what might have been amusement. “Play for me.”

“Now?” She sucked in a breath.

“Certainly now. Tomorrow we might all be dead.”

“But I didn’t bring my instrument.”

“So you must use mine.”

She slipped out of bed and pulled on her shirt, not her pants, and unsnapped the locks on his case. The guitar was heavier than hers and beat-up after twenty years on the road. Sweat marks stained the fingerboard, and there was an obvious repair on the back. This was a guitar that had seen the world, had played in every concert hall she’d imagined and more. She stroked it as if it were a cat, a creature with a beating heart.

Manuel propped himself on the pillows, then clasped his hands behind his head. “It won’t bite. Please begin.”

Scooping up a chair, she started to play.

“Ah,” he sighed as she swung into the opening bars. “The partita. So beautiful.”

Later, as she lay beside him while he slept on the bed, he slipped a hand between her legs. He’s dreaming I’m his wife, Lucia, Trace thought.

Entering her monk’s cell this morning, Trace plucks her guitar from its case and perches on the edge of her cot, feeling cool wood press against her thigh and forearm. The instrument smells of abandonment. Without her it’s a dead thing, pieces of wood glued together, but the moment she touches the fingerboard and rolls her thumb across the strings, the beast stirs back to life.