Silver Nitrate(26)
“If we could talk it over a little,” Montserrat said. “If we could work out an angle.”
“Not now,” Urueta said.
Quickly, stiffly, Urueta bid them goodbye, and Montserrat and Tristán ended up standing in the hallway, looking at each other.
“Why did you have to mention Enigma?” she asked, stomping toward the stairs.
Tristán shrugged and raised his hands helplessly in the air. “How was I supposed to know he’d take it so badly? He was willing to tell us Ewers’s life story until that.”
“And until he mentioned Montero.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning there’s more to that there. We’ll have to find what. I need to pay a visit to the Cineteca.”
“Does this mean Cornelia got you a job at Enigma or what?”
“Nothing solid. Freelance assignment, if that. But Ewers is what I pitched her, so that’s what I should be working on. I have to do more research.”
Tristán patted his clothes looking for his keys. “Do you need to do research? I thought these were the kind of folks that broadcast stories about how Pedro Infante is alive and living in Mazatlán because he was horribly disfigured à la Phantom of the Opera after his plane crashed.”
“You must fill the screen with something for forty-five minutes between commercial breaks. It might as well be a semi-coherent story.”
Tristán found the key and opened the door. “You know who advertises on that show? Those people with astrology hotlines. They must make a bundle by the minute.”
“Also singles hotlines,” she said, remembering the numbers that scrolled across the screen on certain shows late at night.
“Want to have a bite before you head home?” Tristán asked. He went straight to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was a large kitchen. The refrigerator looked like it had recently been rolled into the apartment and so did the stove. A bright yellow phone was attached to a wall.
“You’re cooking?”
Unlike Montserrat, whose mother had been uninterested in teaching her child how to cook, Tristán’s mother had shown him the secrets of the kitchen. He had been her baby, the little one clinging to her skirts. Montserrat’s mother was made of sterner stuff. She barked orders when she was around the house, but she usually got in late anyway, sometimes because of work and sometimes because she’d brought a date home. Montserrat learned to either ignore the men her mother called her “co-workers” instead of her lovers, or to step out and into Tristán’s apartment on the evenings when her mother had company. The Abaids had liked her, anyway, and Tristán’s mother piled her plate high with food.
“I would cook if I had anything decent in the cupboard. But you know how it is. You get used to cooking for two and then it’s too depressing to go back to one. I ate all the beef yesterday. Maybe there’s chicken somewhere.”
Tristán unbuttoned his plaid jacket and tossed it on a counter. Even a simple gesture like that could evoke beauty and grace when Tristán performed it. Now that Montserrat thought about it, today he had looked a bit old Hollywood, his outfit vaguely matching the antique setting. His face had been made for a different decade. Silent films, maybe.
She thought about Montero. She couldn’t remember when the woman had been born. Could she still be alive? If she was still around, it might be a good idea to interview her.
“No chicken. Sushi Ito opened up a few blocks from here,” Tristán said as he rummaged inside the refrigerator and pushed containers aside.
“Sushi Ito is no good. There are real sushi places in the city, you know?”
“Well, I don’t want to go all the way to a decent place. I don’t have any proteins. Fuck. This milk expired.”
Tristán took out a carton of Leche Lala and dumped its contents into the sink. Montserrat peered into his refrigerator. If she was guilty of not having enough food in her apartment, Tristán was guilty of having too much and always eating out anyway. Everything went bad in his refrigerator. He maintained a carefully curated collection of moldy tomatoes and overripe fruits. Montserrat didn’t know why he even bothered venturing into the supermarket if he was going to scarf down enchiladas at the Sanborns anyway. Nevertheless, when the fancy struck him, which, granted, was less and less these days, Tristán could cook a veritable feast. Montserrat knew how to make five dishes, and four of them she’d learned from Tristán’s mom. The lush red of pomegranates and saturated green of pistachios. The scent of rose water and warm bread. That was Tristán’s kitchen, and he hummed an old song as he chopped vegetables. It was usually one of the same melodies his mother used to sing to them.
Montserrat checked the expiration date on a yogurt container.
“Have you ever used those phone lines?” he asked.
She handed him the yogurt, which had also expired, and he began scooping out its contents into the sink. “Have I asked an astrologer to draw my natal chart over the phone?”
“No, the singles hotlines.”
“They’re scams. I’d rather be alone than pretend someone cares about me when they don’t give a damn.”
Tristán seemed to consider that, thoughtful, as he stood by the sink. The light from the refrigerator traced shadows and lines across his face, emphasizing the faint scar under the eye that worried him so much and that he thought marred his looks. A few hairs at his temples glinted silver. He could not have been photographed better if von Sternberg had brought reflectors and lamps into the apartment.