Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,50
not from here, are you? Your accent…”
And so on and so forth, the hairdresser trailed on, making small talk. She informed Casiopea that the best place to go dancing, if she was looking for such fun, was the Salón Mexico, though it was important that she pay for the first-class section.
“You want to be in the ‘butter,’ not the ‘lard’ or the ‘tallow,’ ” the hairdresser explained, because that’s what they nicknamed the sections. “The butter is where the decent men in suits and ties go to dance.”
The lard, the hairdresser told her, was where small-time employees, maids from fancy houses, and secretaries congregated. The tallow was the lowest of the low, and no decent lady should head there. It was full of whores, she was warned.
But when Casiopea looked in the mirror and saw her bangs and her short hair grazing her cheek, she thought she looked like the whores they’d warned her about. And yet her hair seemed quite nice. This might mean that the whores were not as bad as they’d said. Or maybe it meant something else entirely. Like most questions that had assaulted her during her journey, Casiopea had an impressive ability to mark them down as topics she should process later, but that she could not be bothered to consider at the time.
She exited the hairdresser’s shop and for a block or two, she walked very slowly, fearful that people would point at her, even ridicule her new hairstyle. But the pedestrians kept walking, the policemen directed traffic, the motorists banged their palm against the horn. Mexico City was too busy to notice a young, provincial girl with her black hair cut short. She gave a beggar a smile and asked a woman for directions, and neither person seemed shocked by her appearance.
Casiopea let out a sigh of relief, realizing no one was going to stop her because she looked different. Just as she was smiling, however, a heavy hand fell on her shoulder.
“Casiopea, we have to talk,” a voice said.
She knew that voice well. It was her cousin Martín.
Our Father, who art in heaven, he told himself, repeating the Lord’s prayer inside his head. But then he switched from prayer to curses, and back again. The curses were all destined for Casiopea.
He kept his eyes closed tight, fearing he might fall and dash his body against the ground, and the owl flapped its wings quickly. It was a gigantic creature, its talons large enough to lift a man in the air, and Martín kept thinking it would either throw him off his back or rend him with its beak and devour him whole.
The night wind toyed with the young man’s hair and he squeezed his eyes harder, he held tight to the feathers and the flesh of this supernatural creature. When the owl landed on the roof of a building, Martín could hardly contain his joy. He almost burst into tears.
“Your cousin will be at the Hotel Mancera,” the owl told him.
Or at least he thought it was the owl who had spoken, although it might have been Vucub-Kamé making himself heard through the animal, since the bird’s voice had a flintlike quality that made Martín bow his head, respect instinctive in the presence of the unnatural.
“You will tell the girl the Lord of Xibalba wishes to speak with her,” the owl said. “But do not scare her. It is best to make an ally than an enemy.”
“Of course,” Martín said, although he frankly thought it might be better to slap some sense into his cousin. “What if she refuses?”
“Then we will determine another way to proceed. Do nothing else without the Supreme Lord’s consent,” the owl said, before it batted its wings and flew off into the night.
Martín was left alone on the roof of a building he did not know, in a city he had never visited before. It was the middle of the night, and he was afraid of being robbed by ruffians. He was also dreadfully cold; the trip on the owl’s back had left him sniffling and tired. Martín checked himself into a hotel near Casiopea’s lodgings and went to sleep because there was little he could do until the morning and he needed a pillow under his head and a hot bath.
He hoped for good dreams. Instead, he dreamed of Uukumil, his childhood, and his hateful cousin.
* * *
—
In dreams, she hit him with the stick and Grandfather laughed.