Bella Read online

  This room was very tiny. Along two sides of it ran narrow counters, colored a light green. The second counter gave way, for a short space, to a break, in which there was situated a small stove. And at the first counter, with her back turned towards her guests, there stood a short, stout woman, chopping deftly on a wooden block.

  “Mamá!” cried César, walking up behind the woman, and planting a generous kiss on her full brown cheek. “I have brought two friends for dinner. You don’t mind, eh, Mamá?”

  “Qué, hijo?” rejoined the woman, turning for a moment from her task to see his face.

  “Mis amigos, Mamá,” explained César. “Mira! Yo traje dos amigos para cena. Es bueno?”

  “Ah!” said the woman. “Sí, hijo. Es bueno.”

  “Te quiero, Mamá!”

  The woman pinched his cheek, and then turned to Lucie and Robert with a smile. “Hola, niños! Sienten en esas sillas. Sienten!”

  She pointed to the table that stood at the edge of the kitchen. Lucie sat obediently, Robert begrudgingly; and the former went back to examining the second room.

  Upon reaching the end of the hall, she had witnessed the sight of two young women, dancing all around the parlor. This room was something of a miniature, too, almost as much so as the kitchen – and there was only space, indeed, for a single long sofa against the back wall; a short couch against the side wall; a little table atop which sat an old television; and then the boombox on top of that. There was no carpet, as there was none in any other part of the place, and the young women danced across the wooden floor with clicking shoes. They whirled in circles, and twirled each other round; but ceased at their brother’s entrance, and switched off the radio. They then fell together on the sofa, and began to talk. Lucie would have surveyed them more closely, at this, but was obliged to avert her attention to César’s mother.

  “Amigos,” César said presently, drawing his mother up beside the table, “I would like to introduce you to the angel, the light of my life – Josefína Vicente. She speaks only a little English, you see; so you must not ask her too many questions. Anything you wish, however, I will translate.”

  Here he kissed his mother’s cheek once more, and pulled up a chair beside Lucie. Lucie returned his smile, but fell immediately afterwards to trying to catch a glimpse of the two young women in the parlor. She could still hear them talking, and laughing; but she had to crane her neck in order to see them. If she were, say, a person of perfectly normal tendencies, rather than one with a lack of such (which she unfortunately happened to be), she would have considered this rude. But, as it was, the situation called for her brother to sigh, and to pinch her on the arm, before she realized she had erred. Yet it was too late, for one of the young women was glaring at her in a particularly venomous fashion.

  “What are you looking at?” she demanded.

  Lucie turned her face away, and suffered a heated and thorough flush, which she was certain extended all the way to the roots of her hair.

  “Ay, Alejandra!” exclaimed César, slamming his fist on the table. “Do not speak that way to Miss Lucie!”

  “Miss who?” asked Alejandra.

  Lucie then heard a whispered ejaculation, murmured by the second woman, which was followed by a swatting of Alejandra’s arm. Yet she seemed immune to the reprimand.

  They were all saved, then – luckily enough – by the opening of the apartment door. Two men, one old and one young, issued into the well-lit kitchen. Obviously of better temperament than their relative in the parlor, they smiled warmly at their guests, and proceeded towards the sink to wash their grimy hands. Both were tall, and slim, and rather pale of complexion. They struck a marked contrast with the lady of the house, so squat and dark was she. César himself seemed more to resemble his mother, brown as he was, and lacking height as he did; though the meat on his thick bones was balanced nicely with hard muscle.

  “My father, Mateo,” César said to Lucie, “and my brother Eduardo. You must excuse their filthiness – for they labor all the day long in a printing press. Forever they are stained with newspaper ink! I think I would faint with astonishment, if I ever saw either of them with clean and pretty hands.”

  The younger man lost his genial countenance, here, and frowned darkly at his brother. “You must excuse me for nothing,” he said. “My pockets are lined with honest pesos. Can you say the same, César?”

  “Ah!” cried the old man. “No fighting, hijos! Let us sit down to supper, and speak with these visitors I see.” (His words didn’t come as easily as César’s, or Eduardo’s; but still he was qualified enough to attempt English for his guests’ sake.)

  Yet before they could sit, there came another person to the table, who it seemed had been lurking quietly in the darker recesses of the apartment. As she stepped out into the light, Lucie saw that she bore a nearly perfect resemblance to her mother, looking no doubt as that good lady had surely looked, when she was half her present age. She was very short, and very round, though her dark cheeks bloomed with a very pleasant shade of pink. To look upon that bloom was to look upon the heart’s core of benevolence itself; and in doing so, Lucie could not help but grin.

  “Hello!” said the girl, as she caught sight of Lucie and Robert. She spoke with the fluidity of one who takes great pains to give heed to a language not one’s own; and her efforts were fit to be praised. “My name is Maríbel,” she added. “It is very nice to see you both! I do love new faces.”

  “You see I do not need to introduce my sister,” said César. “She so loves to talk, I can never manage to get the words in, before she does.”

  “It is true,” said Maríbel, with a nod of concession.

  César looked over his shoulder, and called to the young women in the parlor. “Come to the table!” he said. “You are the only ones not introduced.”

  The women came – one without much of any sort of emotion, either negative or positive, writ upon her face; while the other (and surely we can guess which one that was) approached only with the most disagreeable of scowls. It seemed that this expression was reserved solely for Lucie.

  “And these,” said César, as they sat, “are my last two lovely sisters – Clara and Alejandra. Everyone – these are Lucie and Robert Benoit.”

  All were seated now. The table was round, and crammed on account of the two guests. Robert sat between Lucie and Mr. Vicente, looking extremely uncomfortable. Beside Mr. Vicente was Eduardo; and then Mrs. Vicente, Maríbel, Clara, Alejandra, and César. While César finished with his introductions, his mother laid out supper on the table. All began right away to eat (though none, at first, with so much fervor as Lucie; for surely no one else had gone so very many hours without food).

  But not much time had passed, before Alejandra looked up from her soup, and posed a question to her brother in Spanish. She spoke so quickly, Lucie wasn’t sure what she had said (little fragments of the language as she had learned in school), till César answered her. He laid down his spoon, and said, “Robert Benoit is an old friend of mine, and Lucie is his sister. It is her first time to Mexico.”

  Alejandra responded; but Lucie could interpret nothing, except her moodiness.

  While César was in the process of checking his sister’s ireful tongue, Lucie chanced to glance towards Eduardo, who was looking at Robert with no little distaste. But he noticed her attention, and changed his eyes to her own face, upon which he bestowed a perfectly friendly grin.

  Robert wasn’t aware of any of this, for he was busy tipping the soup from his spoon, again and again. He seemed determined not to eat it.

  “Roberto,” Mrs. Vicente said suddenly. “You are –” (she paused a moment) “un amigo de mi César?”

  “I would very much prefer it if you called me Robert,” he said simply. His tongue was cold, and stiff, and wouldn’t bend; and Josefína could do nothing but look at him, puzzled.

  “Ay, gringo!” cried César. “You will not talk to my mamá that way! Either twist your pasty face into a smile, or
go out the way you came in!”

  Everyone at the table chuckled at this; not least of all Lucie. But this earned her a particularly dangerous look from Robert, which foreshadowed later injury; and she fell to frowning.

  When she finally raised her eyes from her bowl, the first face she saw was that of Clara; for it was turned already towards her own. All others at the table were distracted by their own individual occupations: old Mateo consuming his food with great relish; Robert and Eduardo fallen now to staring hatefully at one another; César and Alejandra locked still in a noisy grudge match; Mrs. Vicente and Maríbel carrying on a soft but rapid conversation. It seemed that Lucie and Clara were the only ones with no pressing business to attend to; and for that reason, they were drawn to looking at one another.

  Lucie tried to separate the parlor-dancing sisters into the physical category of either mother or father, but she found that it wasn’t so easy a thing as it had been with the other three children. They seemed of an age nearly identical, and in between; referring, at least, to César as the eldest, and Eduardo and Maríbel as the youngest. Alejandra was lean as her father, but dark as her mother, with black eyes that sparkled with a ferocity which she seemed to have collected from neither of her parents, but simply from the air itself. Her face was much more attractive (save for its constant glower) than either Eduardo’s or Maríbel’s; though not more so than César’s, as his has been noted already to have held a premature fascination for Lucie.

  Yet it was in looking at Clara that Alejandra’s and César’s beauty was infinitely dwarfed, and rendered almost moot. Clara seemed to resemble no one at all present, but appeared, rather, to take upon herself the ethereal magnificence granted by the dwellers of that sublunary fairy-place before mentioned. She was not so lean as Alejandra (who appeared as if she sometimes subjected herself to starvation, merely as a sort of objection to the world that must so have irked her), but was a little taller, and lither. Her eyes were lighter, and softer than Alejandra’s; and her skin was paler in comparison. Her black hair gleamed as if with the dust of gems, and her lips were full and red. Her physiognomy seemed infallible, when put to any test of distinction, shaped as it was nearly as that of an ancient Egyptian queen. But perhaps improving the effect of her features still more was the kind expression they offered, which surely couldn’t have been found on the prideful and haughty visage of any such queen.

  Now, Lucie had witnessed her own fair share of beauty in the world; seeing as she couldn’t, even with the usual ugliness of his spirit, refrain from including Robert’s own appearance amongst the very highest stock ever molded. She had seen what people called her own beauty, there in the mirror (though she couldn’t help but think that the claims were exaggerated; for she never saw anything so great as Robert’s face, represented to her in the glass). She had seen breathtaking pulchritude of every form, whether in pictures, or in films, or in her own imagination. Yet nothing had ever before managed to levitate quite so high as her own mind, which was kept as a matter of habit on a shrouded and misty plane, far above the surface of the earth; and nothing had ever served to force her to gravitate to such a real location, out of the way of thick clouds and bright stars, as did the face of Clara Vicente.

  She had only just opened her mouth, preparing to speak to Clara (though what she would have said she had no idea), when Alejandra pushed her chair back suddenly, and sent it clattering to the floor. She leapt to her feet, and looked down at César with eyes flashing, and nostrils aquiver. Then she slapped him across the face, and stomped out of the room.

  “What did I say?” César asked mournfully. He rubbed vigorously at the great red mark on his face; and all the table burst into laughter.

  5

  Sylvie

  There was once a little girl named Sylvie Benoit. She was Lucie’s older sister – and she was the very brightest spot of her life. She always made Lucie think of the delightful waif who belonged to Carroll. That was Sylvie, and Lucie was Bruno, her constant companion.

  Sylvie was reminiscent of a fairy, with fine golden hair all round her head, and eyes of cerulean. But those eyes were very different from her brother’s, and even from her sister’s, for they held absolutely no darkness in them, and sparkled only with the clear and perfect blue that lies atop the sea, when the sun shines at its very highest.

  But Robert didn’t love Sylvie. Or perhaps we should say that he hated her; and hated her even more, at that, than he hated Lucie. Of course, he hated her name – for, just as he saw no point in Lucie, neither did he see any in Sylvie. Yet his hatred went deeper than such a trivial thing, reaching all the way beneath her fairy-like skin, which seemed somehow thinner than an ordinary person’s, very pale and translucent. And there wasn’t a thing in the world, be assured, that he hated any more than Sylvie’s beautiful, beneficent smile.

  Mrs. Benoit always doted on her eldest daughter, and she was Mr. Benoit’s pride and joy.

  Lucie felt no envy, and never once wished to usurp her sister’s title as the apple of her parents’ eyes. Indeed, this effect produced on them only seemed to make her love Sylvie more. For there was not a bone of conceit in all of Sylvie’s little body, and she couldn’t make what evil others might of such a bounty of adoration. Instead she returned this love threefold, bestowing never-ending kisses upon those lips which had ever even once pressed themselves to her own fair cheek.

  But it was different – it was different with hate. She did not reciprocate, in this case, like for like; but rather only exhibited a sort of mild sadness, combined with a kind of affected injury, when she herself was dealt pain. She would gaze at Robert with her big blue eyes, and they were filled with tears, as she wondered at the way he treated her. But this only made him all the more angry; and he lashed out all the harder, each and every chance he got.

  But Sylvie, though small and frail in form, possessed a spirit made of more sturdy stuff. Finally she grew tired of her brother’s temper. Though she would never – strike as he might – exchange blows with him, she fell after a while to ignoring him, and to turning her back on him, the moment he laid a hard hand on her. No more tears shone in her eyes (though neither did any fire flare in her cheek). She became indifferent to him entirely; and this was the one thing he couldn’t endure.

  Lucie, as we know, never accustomed herself to such behavior towards her brother; for it seemed that she had difficulty in recognizing the full blackness of his own. Yet Sylvie was strong, very strong for only ten years old. She could look at Robert, and gauge his true weakness. She could turn her eyes on him, and level him with a single brief stare. Afterwards she would avert her face, unable to hide the pity she felt for him; but of course, Robert never noticed this. (And, indeed, even if he had – doubtless it would only have enraged him further.)

  But Lucie and Sylvie knew how – knew how to keep from their brother, and avoid him at all turns, and escape him at all bends. When they played together, their light was enough to dispel his heavy darkness; and the weight of his hateful gaze slipped like a thick mantle from their shoulders, as it would upon coming in from a deep snow, and discovering a cheerful fire. Together was enough, for them. For when there was together, there was no alone – and no one could take that from them.

  Or so they thought. So Lucie thought, for the eight years she had Sylvie. But she was wrong.

  Sometimes she dreamt, in the very darkest part of the night (which comes, consequently, just before the morning), that she could see tiny fingers, white and pale, reaching towards her. But just when she extended her own hand, searching for that other in the blackness – she woke.

  So it was this night. Lucie sat up in bed, and mopped the cold sweat from her brow. Earlier, Robert had hung one of his jackets up over the small window, to block the light that the curtains couldn’t hide; but still there was a single narrow space at its edge, through which the hazy yellow glow of the lot could be seen. It cast a long line across the carpet, stretching like one of Sylvie’s ghostly fingers towards Lucie’s
bed.

  Lucie watched it for a moment; but then turned from it, and fell back on her pillow.

  6

  The Missing Suitcase

  Lucie woke to the sound of screaming.

  Now, you can imagine how alarming such a sound would be, simply on account of the alarming nature of screams; but this particular incident was even more distressing, considering who it was that was doing the screaming.

  Lucie had never heard Robert scream before. Sometimes he hollered, or shouted, when he was especially angry. But never before had he screamed – like this.

  Lucie hopped out of bed, and ran to the window, wanting to be quite as far away from the scene of madness as she could possibly get. Yet she was more overtaken by confusion, really, than by fear; for this is what the scene consisted of.

  Robert was kneeling beside his own bed, with the sheets torn off of it, and strewn all across the carpet. Every now and then, he lowered himself down, and peeked underneath the bed; only to straighten himself up again once more, and pull on his hair.

  Lucie thought it best not to ask what was the matter. But finally there came words into the harsh, grating sound of Robert’s cries, and she made out this much:

  “It’s gone! It’s all gone! He’s – he’s taken it all!”

  Lucie simply couldn’t resist.

  “Who’s taken what, Robert?” she asked.

  “He – he – that Mexican fiend! He took my suitcase! And everything in it . . .”

  “What was in it?”

  “That’s none of your concern!” he snapped, leaping up to his feet. He began to stride to and fro, pausing with each repetition at the window, and then at the bathroom door, to stroke his prickly chin and think.