The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (5 page)

“When? When is he meeting you?”

“Right now.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. I’m supposed to walk about one hundred meters down the path into the forest. If anyone asks you where I am, say
that I went for a walk, okay? Delay as long as possible.”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Irene embraced her, saying she would write when she and her indio got settled. And Lily watched her walk into the forest.
Then she fell back asleep, waking only when her parents emerged from the cabaña just before sunset.

“Where is Irene?” her mother asked.

“She went for a walk.”

“Why is your hair wet?”

Her father interrupted before Lily could answer. “Let her be, mi amor,” he said.

Lily believed then that her father was special; that he could hear her thoughts and visit her dreams. She still believes it.
That is why nearly twenty years later, as she fights against the doctor’s recommendation of a Cesarean in the hospital room,
she is not surprised to see her father appear like a vision, to find herself in his arms, being carried out of the hospital.
And so, at the age of thirty-four, she is finally forced to acknowledge that there are times when her father’s unpredictability
has its advantages.

Carlos Alberto pulls into the driveway, and Marta, having returned an hour earlier to a mysteriously empty house, opens the
door with a furrowed brow. Though visibly shaken she quickly takes charge, guiding Carlos Alberto, who is carrying Lily, to
the living room sofa, where he sits, still holding her too tightly against his chest. Marta touches the bruise on Lily’s forehead
lightly, peers into her face. “What happened?” she asks.

Lily closes her eyes; the burden of explaining is beyond her. Carlos Alberto answers on her behalf, “She fell and hurt herself.
At the hospital they wanted to deliver the baby by Cesarean section, to be on the safe side, but she refused. And then...”
He gestures wordlessly toward her father, Ismael, who stands framed in the doorway.

Her mother says, “Lily wanted to come home and wait for Amparo to arrive before making any major decisions. It is only a matter
of a day or two. In the meantime, Doctor Ricardo will come to check on her in the evenings. We’ll make up the daybed in the
living room so that we can keep an eye on her and she on us. Come, Luz, you can help me.”

The living room is the hub of the airy modern bungalow she has designed for herself and Carlos Alberto. It is her second favorite
room, after the kitchen, with a high ceiling and large French doors leading to the patio and garden. In the living room she
will never be alone and she will be able to see and know what is going on in the house. She realizes her decision to leave
the hospital is virtually incomprehensible to Carlos Alberto, who thinks that doctors know everything. But she is certain,
from the way her womb had clenched at the word
Cesarean,
that the doctor is wrong. She might not have had the strength to convince Carlos Alberto to take her away, might still be
there, might at this very moment be under the surgeon’s knife, had her father not materialized out of nowhere, plucked her
from the hospital bed, and simply spirited her out of the hospital. Suddenly, the thought of Dr. Ricardo Uzoátegui running
after them waving assorted papers, in a panic over the breach in hospital check-out procedure, makes her want to laugh out
loud, an impulse she controls out of loyalty to Carlos Alberto, who she is sure does not find any of this amusing.

“Someone has cast the evil eye on you,” says Marta, propping Lily with pillows on the daybed. “We must seek divine protection.”
She fingers the string of extended rosary beads she habitually wears around her neck. In the place where a crucifix should
be, there is an image of Maria Lionza.

Lily smiles. Marta is never hesitant to include Maria Lionza in mortal matters. Her candles and offerings and spells for every
domestic crisis and national calamity have been a peripheral part of the household life for as long as she has worked for
Lily’s family, a family whose primary religion has always been individual expression. It would not occur to anyone to ridicule
Marta’s devotion or interfere with it in any way. They indulge its marginally obtrusive manifestations in their lives—the
rope of garlic hanging in the kitchen window, the small statuettes on their bedside tables, the burning of colored candles
and herbs, the murmuring of incantations. Even Carlos Alberto has come to regard Marta’s magical beliefs with indulgence and
has, on occasion, been persuaded to carry a charm for protection in his pocket. Her diagnosis comes as no surprise to anyone.

“We will start a Novena to Maria Lionza this very night,” Marta decides.

According to Marta, nine days before a baby comes into the world, its soul is born and wanders between the human world and
the world of spirits, looking for the body it has been destined to inhabit. If the evil eye is cast before the soul finds
its home, it continues to wander, lost between worlds. In order to guide the soul to the body, it is advisable to seek the
help of Maria Lionza, for it is she who lights up the path for souls that are lost.

“How do we go about it, Marta?” asks Lily agreeably, glad for the distraction, but hoping that Marta’s remedy doesn’t involve
anything grisly such as chicken’s blood or pig’s feet.

“Go about what?” says Luz, returning from the kitchen with her third beer.

Lily pats the side of the bed for Luz to sit next to her, then holds her hand up, saying, “Let’s wait for Mami.”

When Consuelo joins them in the living room moments later, Marta says, “Every night for nine nights, beginning tonight, we
will say the Rosary of Maria Lionza and ask for her blessings.” Luz, a self-proclaimed atheist, rolls her eyes and groans,
but stops when Lily shoots her a beseeching glance. Marta ignores her daughter and goes to the kitchen to look for candles.

The sight of Carlos Alberto walking up and down on the patio is distracting, and Lily wants to divert him. When Marta leaves
the room, she says loudly, “Carlos Alberto is the expert on Maria Lionza, aren’t you, darling? Come and tell us about her.”

Carlos Alberto stops pacing and returns to the living room, where he draws a chair up to the daybed. With Lily nodding encouragingly,
he explains that unlike the traditional rosary, the rosary of Maria Lionza has seven decades instead of five. Each decade,
he says, is dedicated to one of the seven courts of the goddess, which comprise a pantheon: the Court of Maria Lionza, led
by herself; the Medical Court, led by an early twentieth-century physician; the Court of the Juans, composed of various members
of popular folklore; the Teacher’s Court, led by a late nineteenth-century writer; the Black Court, led by a martyred African
slave; the Celestial Court, led by the Madonna; and the Malandro Court, led by Yoraco, a rogue who steals from the rich and
gives to the poor and has never been caught by the authorities. Each court has various subdeities, some real, some mythological,
some even derived from comic-book characters. And since there is no central authority among believers in Maria Lionza, lesser
deities are constantly added to the courts.

“Carlos Alberto!” says Luz. “How is it that you know so much about Maria Lionza? Could it be that the surgeon’s son is a secret
devotee?”

Though Luz is fond of Carlos Alberto, it is her nature to be provocative, and Lily wants to avoid an upset. “Don’t you remember,
Luz?” she says palliatively. “Carlos Alberto has been working on a novel about a girl who is possessed by the spirit of the
goddess. And your mother has been helping him with the details.”

“Of course I remember,” says Luz, an avid aficionada of soap opera news. “It was a more literary version of his radio novela
called
Maria del Sorte.
That new actress was supposed to read the role of Maria. If I recall, she was a blond bombshell and the casting director
said she exuded sensuality, which is code for Big Tits. No wonder you became so interested in the subject, Carlos Alberto.”

Two circles of red have appeared high on Carlos Alberto’s cheeks. “My dear Luz,” he says stiffly, “whether an actress is a
bombshell or not is hardly relevant on radio. But for your information, I never had the chance to meet and personally observe
the physical proportions of the person in question; I never even knew her name.”

“Coromoto Sanchez, that was her name. Yes, I remember now,” says Luz.

“Lo que sea; I couldn’t care less,” he says. “My interest in Maria Lionza stems from my research for my novel. And my present
involvement in the novela business is purely financial. Some of us still have to earn money, you know; we can’t sit around
all day, listening to Passion Radio and waiting for someone to write the next episode.”

He has touched a nerve, and now Luz is livid, her eyes flashing dangerously. Lily herself has never suffered from the Latin
American addiction to soap operas; her father had forbidden them when she was growing up, saying they were for imbeciles who
had no lives of their own—an opinion shared by her husband, who has never witnessed the enactments of his own scripts. But
Luz is no imbecile, and her interest in novelas extends beyond that of spectator—she is a senior shareholder and coproducer
at TVista. Before the discussion heats up further, Lily, who cannot bear quarrels, nervously interjects. “It’s a good thing
you are both so good at this telenovela business. Because
Soledad
paid for the construction of this house, and
Amor sin duda
has paid most of our bills for more than two years.”

Fortunately Marta returns with the candles and the discussion comes to a close. Though Luz and Carlos Alberto are still glaring
at each other, they are quiet as she begins the rosary to Maria Lionza, which, Lily observes, is just like the traditional
rosary if you don’t pay attention to the words. Afterward, Marta says, “Now we must offer the baby’s spirit a happy memory.
Someone has to tell a story.”

“Lily should do it, since it’s her baby,” says Luz sulkily.

Lily, who is relieved that Luz has decided to be participatory instead of disruptive, says, “All right, then. I will tell
the story of how I fell in love.” She eyes her husband mischievously. “You are not obliged to listen. Perhaps you’d like to
find something more manly to do.”

But Carlos Alberto says, “Show me the Criollo, man or woman, who can resist a good love story, and I’ll show you a dead Criollo.”

It is true that all through high school and even through college, Lily kept her word to her mother not to get into trouble
with boys or allow them to distract her from her studies. Nevertheless, her fascination with them remained undiminished for
the duration of her college education.

Between the beginning of her first year and the end of her senior year at the Universidad Central, Lily double-majored in
architecture and in men. Handsome, intelligent, eminently eligible young men who believed they could change the world armed
with their education and their wit, and with Lily beside them. When they held her close, undulating to an irresistible salsa
beat, and raided her generous mouth with their tongues, she felt her body respond ardently, with a quickening of breath, an
acceleration of the heartbeat, a fluttering in the lowest recesses of the belly. But when she examined her heart, she found
it floating, a seagull on perfectly still waters. And so, on moonlit nights, when her enamorados pressed themselves hard and
feverishly against her and moved their hands to her breasts, she reached and covered them with hers, entwined her fingers
in theirs, and pulled them gently away. So tender and apologetic was the resolve with which she repelled their advances that
never once was the sobriquet
tease
applied in her regard. Which drove her girlfriends crazy.