could be friends. But she understood now. This man was an absolute liar, toying with her, attempting to confuse and distract her. He turned kind for a second when it suited him, granted her an inch of cordiality, then took it away.
“Go to sleep,” she said, but in her mind she thought fuck you, and her tone plainly indicated that. She snatched the lamp and left him in the shadows.
When she reached her room she realized it had started to rain. The sort of rain that does not ease, a constant patter against the window. She ventured into the bathroom and looked at the bathtub. The water was cold, and the steam had dissipated. She yanked up the plug.
18
Noemí slept fitfully, afraid she’d launch into another somnambulistic escapade. Eventually, she dozed off.
There was a rustle of cloth in her room, the creak of a board, and she turned her head in fright toward the door, her hands clutching her bedsheets.
It was Florence in another of her prim dark dresses and her pearls. She had let herself into her room and carried a silver tray in her hands.
“What are you doing?” Noemí asked, sitting up. Her mouth felt dry.
“It’s lunchtime,” Florence said.
“What?”
It couldn’t be that late, could it? Noemí got up and pulled the curtains aside. Light streamed in. It rained still. The morning hours had burned away without her noticing, exhaustion bleeding her dry.
Florence set the lunch tray down. She poured a cup of tea for Noemí.
“Oh, no, thanks,” Noemí said, shaking her head. “I wanted to see Catalina before eating.”
“She’s woken up already and has gone back to bed,” Florence replied, setting the teapot down. “Her medication is making her very sleepy.”
“In that case, will you tell me when the doctor arrives, then? He is supposed to come today, isn’t he?”
“He won’t be here today.”
“I thought he visited every week.”
“It’s still raining,” Florence said, indifferent. “He won’t come up with this rain.”
“It might rain tomorrow too. After all, it’s the rainy season, isn’t it? What’ll happen then?”
“Well get by on our own, we always have.”
What neat, crisp answers to everything! Why, it almost felt like Florence had written and memorized all the right things to say.
“Please tell me when my cousin wakes up,” Noemí insisted.
“I’m not your servant, Miss Taboada,” Florence replied. Her voice lacked animosity, though. It was merely a fact.
“I am well aware of that, but you demand that I not visit Catalina without warning and then you set up an impossible schedule for me. What is your problem?” she asked. She realized she was being incredibly rude, but she wished to draw a crack through Florence’s calm façade.
“If you have an issue with that, you’d best bring it up with Virgil.”
Virgil. The last thing she wished to do was bring anything up with Virgil. Noemí crossed her arms and stared at the woman. Florence stared back at her, her eyes very cold and her mouth curved a little, the slightest hint of derision.
“Enjoy your lunch,” Florence concluded, and there was superiority in her smile, as if she thought she’d won a battle.
Noemí stirred the soup with her spoon and sipped the tea. She quickly gave up on both of them. She felt the beginning of a headache. She ought to eat but stubbornly decided to look around the house.
Noemí grabbed her sweater and walked downstairs. Did she hope to find anything? Ghosts, peeking from behind doors? If there were any, they evaded her.
The rooms with sheets on top of the furniture were dire, and so was the greenhouse with its wilted plants. Aside from evoking a mild sense of depression, they revealed nothing. She ended up seeking refuge in the library. The curtains were drawn, and she pulled them open.
She looked down at the circular rug with the snake she had noticed during her first visit and slowly walked around it. There had been a snake in her dream. It burst from an egg. No, from a fruiting body. If dreams had meaning, what did this one tell her?
Well, she was damn sure one needn’t phone a psychoanalyst to determine it had a sexual component to it. Trains going through tunnels make for neat metaphors, thanks, Mr. Freud, and apparently phallic mushrooms straining through the soil served the same purpose.
Virgil Doyle straining against her.
That was no metaphor; it was crystal clear.
The memory of him, with his hands in her hair, his lips against her own, made her shiver. But there wasn’t anything pleasant in