scent of urine and disinfectant, or until an orderly caught me and escorted me roughly to bed. I remembered.
Tony reached across the space between us to touch my hand, but I stood up and moved to the edge of the circle of light. I stumbled a little and put one hand on the chair back for support. The aguardiente had left my body heavy and my head light. When I turned my head, the world moved too quickly around me. "I don't mind being told I'm crazy," I said, looking out into the plaza. "I don't care what you think about that.
But I won't be locked up."
"What are you talking about, Liz? I didn't say anything about—''
"No, you didn't say anything." He was starting to stand, to move toward me, but I glared at him and he sat down again. "You think I've been crazy for years."
"You know better than that."
My hand was in a fist and my fingernails were etching painful crescents in my palm. The tension was all around me. I was afraid. No words came. When I groped for words, I thought of the great silence that surrounded the mounds at dawn, the scrabbling of the lizards on the rocks, the crying of birds in the monte, the hissing of grasses in a light breeze. No words.
"I'll stay," he said. "I've been battling shadows of my own for years. Fighting yours might do me good."
I felt empty. I heard my own words slurred by alcohol, remembered too vividly the stench of the ward. I looked at Tony, leaning back in his chair, and remembered Robert and the way he had comforted me when I was upset. "Don't worry about it," I said to Tony then. "I won't send Diane away. Don't concern yourself."
"Now wait," he said, holding out a hand. "Relax. Don't—"
"I said it's all right. Don't worry." I left him and returned to the safety of my hut.
Chapter Eighteen: Diane
At Barbara's suggestion, we left camp before dinner on Friday. We dined at Los Balcónes, a small restaurant on a terrace that overlooked Parque Hidalgo. From this vantage point, Barbara amused herself by watching the men who were watching the women in the square below. The men loitered on the benches and comers, discussing important things, gesturing and laughing. When a woman strolled past— especially a young woman—the discussion was disrupted. One man stared at her. Another man, noticing that his friend had been distracted, turned his head to see the source of the distraction. A third man saw the second man turn to look and followed suit. By that time, the first man had returned to the discussion, but a fourth man was just beginning to look. Whenever a woman, any woman, walked by, a ripple of turning heads followed her.
"Look," Barbara said. "Why don't you go down and walk through the square, and I'll check out the reaction? Then I'll go down, and—"
"I don't really feel like it."
"Yeah?" She stopped watching the men in the square for a moment. "You feeling sick?"
"No."
"Then what's wrong?"
I shrugged. "I'm just pissed at Liz."
"Yeah? Why?"
"She wants me to leave the dig."
"Yeah? Where does she want you to go?"
"The Caribbean coast. Back to Los Angeles. Anywhere, she said."
"Why?"
I watched the men in the square. They had returned to an animated discussion. "She said ... this is weird, but she said that the curandera said that I should leave."
"Liz said that?"
"Yeah."
Barbara tapped her fingers restlessly on the table.
"Do you think ..." I hesitated, uncertain.
"What?"
"Sometimes she watches things that aren't there. Her eyes follow them, and when you look there's nothing there at all."
"I've noticed that. She has always done that."
"Sometimes, she talks to herself. I keep meeting her wandering around early in the morning and half the time she is talking to herself.''
"That's so."
"Do you think she's crazy?"
Barbara looked down at the square. The two flower-selling children were pestering a retired American couple in matching leisure suits. "She's not normal, but that doesn't mean she's crazy." She shrugged. "I mean ... who is normal? Those people?" She pointed at the retired couple. "I like your mother. She acts a little odd sometimes, but that's all right with me. I act a little odd sometimes. What did you tell her when she asked you to go?"
"Told her I wouldn't."
"And what did she say?"
"She said it was my responsibility."
"Sounds fair enough. So you're not going."
"I guess not."
For a moment we sat in silence. The bronze statue in the square caught the last rays