Silver Nitrate(41)

One of Regina’s historian buddies would know if the stuff Abel Urueta had told her about radiesthesia and Nazis had any truth to it, or if he had made it up, but Montserrat didn’t feel quite ready to pick up the phone yet.

Montserrat went to the kitchen and put water on to boil. The battered kettle stretched her face across its surface, deforming her reflection as she crossed her arms and waited for the steam to rise. The instant coffee was insipid, but she wasn’t fussy, and she carried her cup back to the living room to continue her reading.

The opener of the way, the book said, and there was an illustration of a man seen from behind with his arms raised toward the sky, while a gigantic eye stared at him from the heavens. Urueta had called the vegvísir “That Which Shows the Way.” And here was the “opener of the way.” There was a symmetry to the book, and not only in the text, but in the illustrations. The circle with the four sections aligned perfectly with the drawing of the vegvísir, and when you paid close attention you realized that the black circle was in fact an eye with a pupil in the center.

She stopped, her finger resting upon the page, feeling odd at the realization that there was a logic to Ewers’s manuscript and perhaps she was beginning to get the hang of it. In fact, it was quite the elegant, artistic little book. A bit garrulous. Ewers favored long paragraphs and never-ending sentences, although there was an undeniable allure to the way he structured his thoughts. In person, had this delivery been amplified, had the words been even more insidiously charming when spoken?

“?‘Fear gives a sorcerer power over a person,’?” she read out loud. “?‘Never let fear control you: rage will be your shield. Forge an armor out of anger and bile.’?”

She flipped to the last few pages of the book to the black-and-white headshot of Ewers with a tiny biography beneath it—nothing useful, merely two sentences declaring Ewers an occultist and expert in all matters magical. A water stain marred the back of the book, as if someone had left it near an open window when it rained or spilled a cup of tea, and the headshot in turn was deformed, and the details of the face were smudged by the ravages of time and the elements. And yet, once again, there was something vivid, bewitching, about Ewers’s gaze, staring at her across the decades.



* * *



—

The next day, she dropped by Araceli’s place. They were both still giddy with her diagnosis and besides, her sister had wanted to take a bunch of clothes to the laundromat and run errands. When they were done with that, Araceli suggested they have supper together, and therefore it wasn’t until eight p.m. that Montserrat walked into her apartment and saw the answering machine with the number four blinking on it.

She groaned, figuring that the guy from the video store was going to scold her.

She pressed the button to rewind the messages.

“Montserrat, give me a call,” Tristán said. “Something’s wrong.”

Then another message. “Montserrat, you’re not in yet? Why don’t you have a pager? Call me.”

Were all the messages from Tristán? Had he gotten himself in trouble? Before she could listen to another message the phone rang and she picked up.

“Finally!” Tristán said. “Where the hell have you been? I’m tired of talking to your machine.”

“Out. What are you, my mom?”

“I saw some fucking shit and today it’s even more fucked up.”

“What?”

“You better get over here.”

“Sure, boss. Do you want me to swing by with Cheetos or anything else you might want? A pizza, maybe?”

“I’m not kidding. It’s important.”

Montserrat scoffed as he hung up, then she grabbed the keys she had dumped next to the phone and went to get her car. When she arrived at Tristán’s building, he was waiting for her outside, arms crossed. She had been ready to yell at him, but he looked tense and truly worried.

“What happened?” she asked as they went into the building.

“After that celebration at Abel’s apartment the other night I saw Karina,” Tristán said, walking briskly toward the elevator.

“Were they showing a rerun?”

“No, she was in my apartment.”

“You were looking at pictures of her?”

“She was standing in my apartment.”

Montserrat stared at Tristán as he jabbed the elevator button. Before she could ask another question he spoke again. “I freaked out. I got dressed and checked in to a hotel, and I spent a whole day there.”

“You went to a hotel because you had a nightmare?”

“I saw her. And don’t look at me like that. I’m not doing any drugs, and alcohol doesn’t scramble your brain.”

You’re having a nervous breakdown, she thought. They’d been through one already. And whatever he said, he might be lying about the drugs.

“Well, the pressure of the new soap opera, the excitement—”

“I don’t see my dead girlfriend when I’m excited, trust me!” Tristán yelled as he jabbed the elevator button one more time.

The doors opened, and he stepped in with a huff. Montserrat followed him and watched as he pressed the button for his floor. She was trying to watch her words and gently suggest he needed to talk to a doctor, but then Tristán muttered a low “fuck,” and she figured she needed to ease him into that conversation.