Silver Nitrate(11)
3
Montserrat despised hospitals. The sight of a doctor or a nurse catapulted her back to her childhood. Three. That had been the number of surgeries on her foot. The long, ugly scar running up her ankle and the eternally skinny, atrophied muscles of the left leg were her legacy. But the foot no longer turned at such an odd angle, and she didn’t noticeably limp—not most days—even if cold weather made the limb ache. She had to watch how she walked. But after so many decades she knew how to lean her weight, and there was seldom an awkward shuffle as she moved. Except when she felt tired, and then there might be that old, unusual stride—the living dead mambo, that’s what she called it—but toned down, like noise in the background of a recording that has been successfully muffled by the audio console.
No, she couldn’t stand hospitals even if the days of treatments and pain were long gone. But her sister needed her, so Montserrat put on a smile and waited until Araceli came out and jumped back in the car. Araceli switched on the radio, settling on a station that played ballads. Montserrat glanced at her sister’s delicate wrist and tightened her grasp on the wheel. It seemed to her Araceli was thinner each time they saw each other.
“I’m thinking of going by the Mercado de Sonora for those candles I told you about,” Araceli said.
Probably for a limpia, too. Not that those worked, like Tristán had pointed out. Araceli believed in healing crystals and auras. Montserrat’s faith in such remedies was lukewarm. She’d placed a statue of San Antonio upside down to get a sweetheart and tied ribbons around an aloe vera plant, but it was out of habit more than pure belief. She wished she could believe, though. Montserrat and her sister needed a miracle.
“I remember. I thought we could go later, but we can head there right away,” Montserrat said.
“Oh, we can’t drive there, you know that. I’m mentioning it in case you need something. I can drop it off at your place.”
“Maybe we should do it the other way around.”
“I can take a bus.”
“The bus is crowded. And they always pass you by. Especially now, you shouldn’t be wasting your energy standing around, waiting for one to roll by.”
Araceli gave her a pointed look. “I can still ride a bus.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” Montserrat said, but of course she’d implied as much. She didn’t know how the hell to deal with Araceli’s illness. She supposed Araceli simply wasn’t used to having their roles reversed. It had been Montserrat who had needed care when they were young.
Araceli sighed. There was a pause. “You have plans. Didn’t you say you’re having dinner with Tristán?”
“I can have dinner with Tristán any day of the week.”
“Have you seen his new apartment yet?”
Montserrat shook her head. “I’ve been busy,” she said.
Not as busy as she would want, although she didn’t dare tell her sister that. All she’d ever wanted to do was spend her life next to cartridge recorders, turntables, and mixing consoles. Library effects, loops, and multitracks, that’s what she understood. Now with work drying up—Mario had not forgiven her, he simply needed her right this minute—what would she do? She wanted to look at cue sheets and figure out the layback, not have to fight with her boss for a couple of crummy shifts.
“Don’t waste your Saturday with me. Go have fun. Have dinner with a handsome man.”
“It’s only Tristán.”
“So? You might as well look at something pretty while you cut your steak. Better than staring at one of those gruesome posters of yours.”
“He’s not wall décor.”
“You know what I mean. Drop me off at home and have a good time.”
“Araceli, I should stay with you. We can rent a movie.”
“No, you shouldn’t. We can never agree on what to watch.”
That much was true. Few people shared her taste. She’d scared a date off once by renting Evil Dead, another with Videodrome.
Montserrat took Araceli back to her apartment and then made her way home. She dropped the car at the garage, then walked the one block to her building. It was a shabby six-floor structure from the 1940s. Although it was not much to look at, it had weathered the earthquake of ’85 without any issues, and its age meant her two-bedroom apartment was spacious, with high ceilings. And as a bonus, she having been such a long-term tenant, the rent was very reasonable.
Montserrat appreciated the height of the walls, which allowed her to showcase her posters. Although her sister thought the artwork macabre, Montserrat delighted in her collection. Her living room featured a beautiful poster of Suspiria and another of Hasta el Viento Tiene Miedo. She had framed lobby cards of other flicks. In her room, above the bed, Boris Karloff stared at her with his sad eyes. The second room, which was haphazardly used as an office, was stuffed with records, CDs, and movies. She had her computer there, a comfy chair, more posters, a desk, and a corkboard that was mostly used for pinning random photos, postcards, and tickets from concerts she’d attended. A poster of The Curse of the Hanged Man, Urueta’s last horror film, was framed and placed above a file cabinet she used to store documents. The hanged man in question was a tiny figure in the background, dangling from a tree, and in the foreground there was a woman in a white nightgown, kneeling by what appeared to be a door that looked suspiciously coffin-shaped.