"She also banged the top of her head," Dr. Quintana told him.
"Or someone banged her, Jo
sefa!" Clark French said.
"This hotel is--" Josefa started to say to Juan Diego. She stopped herself to watch the solemn children, Pedro and Consuelo, accompanying the gurney carrying Auntie Carmen's body. One of the EMTs was wheeling the gurney through the lobby of the Encantador.
"This hotel is what?" Juan Diego asked Clark's wife.
"Enchanted," Dr. Quintana told him.
"She means haunted," Clark French said.
"Casa Vargas," was all Juan Diego said; that he'd just been dreaming about ghosts was not even a surprise. "Ni siquiera una sorpresa," he said in Spanish. ("Not even a surprise.")
"Juan Diego knew the daughter of his woman friend first--he only met them on the plane," Clark was explaining to his wife. (The medical examiner had left them, following the gurney.) "I guess you don't know them well," Clark said to his former teacher.
"Not at all well," Juan Diego admitted. "I've slept with them both, but they're mysteries to me," he told Clark and Dr. Quintana.
"You've slept with a mother and her daughter," Clark said, as if making sure. "Do you know what succubi are?" he then asked, but before Juan Diego could answer, Clark continued. "Succuba means 'paramour'; a succubus is a demon in female form--"
"Said to have sex with men in their sleep!" Juan Diego hurried to interject.
"From the Latin succubare, 'to lie beneath,' " Clark carried on.
"Miriam and Dorothy are just mysteries to me," Juan Diego told Clark and Dr. Quintana again.
"Mysteries," Clark repeated; he kept saying it.
"Speaking of mysteries," Juan Diego said, "did you hear that rooster crowing in the middle of the night--in total darkness?"
Dr. Quintana stopped her husband from repeating the mysteries word. No, they'd not heard the crazy rooster, whose crowing had been cut short--perhaps forever.
"Hi, Mister," Consuelo said; she was back beside Juan Diego. "What are you going to do today?" she whispered to him. Before Juan Diego could answer her, Consuelo took his hand; he felt Pedro take hold of his other hand.
"I'm going to swim," Juan Diego whispered to the kids. They looked surprised--all the water, which was everywhere around them, notwithstanding. The kids glanced worriedly at each other.
"What about your foot, Mister?" Consuelo whispered. Pedro was nodding gravely; both children were staring at the two-o'clock angle of Juan Diego's crooked right foot.
"I don't limp in the water," Juan Diego whispered. "I'm not crippled when I'm swimming." The whispering was fun.
Why did Juan Diego feel so exhilarated at the prospect of the day ahead of him? More than the swimming beckoned him; it pleased him that the children enjoyed whispering with him. Consuelo and Pedro liked making a game of his going swimming--Juan Diego liked the kids' company.
Why was it that Juan Diego felt no urgency to pursue the usual arguing with Clark French about Clark's beloved Catholic Church? Juan Diego didn't even mind that Miriam hadn't told him she was leaving; actually, he was a little relieved she was gone.
Had he felt afraid of Miriam, in some unclear way? Was it merely the simultaneity of his dreaming about ghosts or spirits on a New Year's Eve and Miriam having spooked him? To be honest, Juan Diego was happy to be alone. No Miriam. ("Until Manila.")
But what about Dorothy? The sex with Dorothy, and with Miriam, had been sublime. If so, why were the details so difficult to remember? Miriam and Dorothy were so entwined with his dreams that Juan Diego was wondering if the two women existed only in his dreams. Except that they definitely existed--other people had seen them! That young Chinese couple in the Kowloon train station: the boyfriend had taken Juan Diego's picture with Miriam and Dorothy. ("I can get one of all of you," the boy had said.) And there was no question that everyone had seen Miriam at the New Year's Eve dinner; quite possibly, only the unfortunate little gecko, skewered by the salad fork, had failed to see Miriam--until it was too late.
Yet Juan Diego wondered if he would even recognize Dorothy; in his mind's eye, he had trouble visualizing the young woman--admittedly, Miriam was the more striking of the two. (And, sexually speaking, Miriam was more recent.)
"Shall we all have breakfast?" Clark French was saying, though both Clark and his wife were distracted. Were they peeved at the whispering, or that Juan Diego seemed inseparable from Consuelo and Pedro?
"Consuelo, haven't you already had breakfast?" Dr. Quintana asked the little girl. Consuelo had not let go of Juan Diego's hand.
"Yes, but I didn't eat anything--I was waiting for Mister," Consuelo answered.
"Mr. Guerrero," Clark corrected the little girl.