Silver Nitrate(33)

“Come on, you know he’s not expecting that.”

“He isn’t? Are you sure? He seemed convinced his old German buddy was a sorcerer.”

“So, what if he expects a little something? Your sister shops at the Mercado de Sonora all the time. How many ribbons does she have tied around an aloe vera plant right now?”

“Don’t compare my sister to Abel Urueta. Going for a limpia is not the same as joining a cult led by a delirious would-be sorcerer, then thinking that decades later you can cast a spell he taught you.”

“I’m not saying it’s identical. But people want to believe a rabbit foot is lucky and that you can attract good vibrations with quartz crystals. Hell, that’s what Enigma is all about. Wanting to believe a silly alien conspiracy for five seconds, but it doesn’t mean anyone is thinking a UFO will land on the roof of their apartment tomorrow and the Martians will dance the cha-cha for them.”

“I don’t know,” Montserrat muttered, and she shoved the mug toward him. “Smoke if you want.”

“I thought I couldn’t smoke in your apartment or your car.”

“I can’t stand your stupid face. You look like you are about to pass out from nicotine deficiency.”

Tristán gave Montserrat a sharp look. He wanted to prove to her that he could spend the afternoon without a cigarette, but he was savoring the taste of it already. He popped the cigarette into his mouth and lit it with dexterous fingers.

“Can you do it?” he asked.

“I’d have to look at the film,” Montserrat said. “The problem with silver nitrate film is it can deteriorate dramatically if it’s not well handled. It can self-destruct and gives off acidic byproducts. It can even damage other films and prints.”

Montserrat’s face became more animated as she spoke. She loved spewing nerdy details; it was as addictive and delicious to her as a cigarette was to Tristán. Or as telling stories was to Urueta.

“You have six stages of degradation. After stage three, you’re toast. You can’t duplicate that film. Urueta’s film could be white powder residue and nothing more.”

“Like Dracula, when the sun hits him. Ashes in a coffin. Or a tin can in this case. But you don’t know that yet.”

“No. I don’t. Which makes it even more annoying.”

“Point is, the film could be fine,” Tristán said, tapping his cigarette against the rim of the cup. “You could have a guaranteed interview with Abel Urueta, a glimpse at a rare horror film, and all it takes is studio time.”

“The rarest of horror films,” she muttered. “But it’s the same problem. What if he really thinks it’ll work?”

“Why shouldn’t he hope it does?” he replied, his voice off key. “If I could go back and stop Karina from getting into that car, I would. And on bad days, if you told me what I had to do to time travel was rub chicken’s blood on my face and dance around the living room, I might. It’s stupid, but it’s also a bit of hope, and hope is hard to come by.”

Hell, if someone told Tristán he had to kill the chicken by gnawing at its neck to improve his lot in life, he’d do it.

That week he’d seen the latest issue of De Telenovela at a newsstand. It featured a picture of him and Karina on the cover. He’d bought a copy, then tossed it next to his bed without reading it. Why? He knew what it would say. He didn’t wish to rehash the past, and yet he hadn’t been able to stop himself from getting the stupid magazine.

“It’s a fantasy,” Montserrat said.

“We lived off fantasies when we were kids. All those matinees, those were our tickets to dreamland,” he said a little roughly, because whenever he thought about Karina something ached inside him. It was the cumulative scars of the accident, of his addictions and mistakes, his lost career and hopes.

“He’s over sixty years old and we’re thirty-eight.”

“I looked in the mirror this morning, but we all indulge in games, even at this age.”

“You’re saying we should indulge the old man.”

“It can’t hurt. Besides, you said you liked the guy.”

“It’s because I like him that I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

Tristán drank a little Fanta, and Montserrat went back into the kitchen and brought out a plate with peanuts. They cracked the peanuts open and popped them into their mouths.

“Maybe it’s not Ewers on camera in that film. Maybe the negative is blank.”

“Or powder, like you said,” he replied.

“Or Ewers wasn’t a sorcerer. He was some guy Abel knew and he made up the story about them casting spells together.”

“That too. Magic films! It’s insane. But we do this little thing, and you might have a real story. I bet you Abel even lets you borrow that photo album of his. Boom! We have your story for Enigma. You profit, we make an old guy happy, and we get to see a few minutes of a rare film.”

The sun was setting. The smog outside made the sun look like a great red ball of fire, like they were in an apocalyptic film. The shadows on the floor were elongated and deformed by this reddish twilight. Montserrat’s plants by the window wove elaborate organic patterns of darkness. On the walls of the living room, the monsters in the posters stared down at them both, and the clock behind him, shaped like Felix the Cat, marked the hour as it shifted its eyes.