The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini Read online

  I walked over to the photograph which earlier I had hardly noticed, a large photograph in a plain silver frame. It showed the head and shoulders of a young woman in a white blouse leaning up against the trunk of a tree. Her fingers were linked behind her head so that her elbows stretched out on either side in a way that reminded me of Pacheco’s double staircase, that same bracket shape. She was about eighteen years old and very beautiful, with long black wavy hair and large, full lips, thick with a dark lipstick. Her eyes were somewhat feline and stared from the picture flirtatiously, even brazenly, yet also with innocence and fear. Dalakis had come over to look as well. I found the mixture of innocence and flirtatiousness extremely appealing. The tilt of her chin suggested confidence, as if she felt there was nothing she couldn’t do or control, while her large breasts were almost aggressive in the way they pushed themselves forward. Beneath the fabric of her blouse, I could see the outline of her brassiere.

  “What do you think,” asked Malgiolio, peering around my shoulder at the photograph, “do I have a chance?”

  Dalakis wrinkled his brow and looked disapproving. “Maybe she’s Pacheco’s niece, even his daughter.”

  “No,” said Malgiolio, growing serious, “I think I know who she is and it’s not a pretty story.”

  “Who is it?” I asked. I believed I could identify the girl, but I wanted to hear what Malgiolio would say.

  “She’s the daughter of Jorge Mendez. Do you know him? He taught in a suburban high school but also did a little writing for the paper, mostly on school affairs—what plays would be performed in the spring and who made the honor roll.”

  I looked again at the photograph, then sat down on the leather couch. The overhead fan was directly above me and I felt its breeze mussing my hair. “I met him years ago. Didn’t he die recently? A car accident or something like that?” I vaguely remembered a tall wispy man whose ambition was to become a professor at the Catholic university.

  Malgiolio leaned against the bookshelves, slowly swirling his brandy in a snifter. “His car went off a bridge into a river, but it’s only out of kindness that people called it an accident.”

  “I can’t believe she’s Mendez’s daughter,” said Dalakis. “Why should Pacheco keep her picture on his mantel?” He had returned to the armchair. Even when sitting, he appeared to slouch, as if his spine were fixed in a permanent quarter-circle. He had hardly touched his drink.

  “Because he loved her,” said Malgiolio. “Even though he killed her, he was still in love with her.”

  For a moment we were too surprised to respond. I found myself thinking that the very room was listening, as if all those thousands of books with their leather and paper and cardboard covers were ears bent to discover our purpose.

  “Really, Luis, how impossible you are!” cried Dalakis.

  I tried to show no surprise, if only because Malgiolio had wanted to shock us. “What happened?” I asked.

  Malgiolio walked back slowly toward the fireplace. What hair he had was arranged in thin black strands across his bald head and he had the habit of combing them with the fingernails of his thumb and middle finger, as if searching for lice. He did that now as he lifted the photograph and looked at it more closely. “She was still in high school, then in her last year she became sick. It turned out she had to have her spleen removed. Mendez called me. Pacheco had been recommended to him and he’d heard I knew him. What could I say but that Pacheco was known as a wonderful surgeon? The next thing I learned she’d had the operation. But Pacheco wasn’t satisfied with removing her spleen. I suppose he was struck by her beauty, just as we were.

  “Think of it, an innocent girl, still in high school. Pacheco saw her every day, ostensibly to follow up on her recovery. But actually he was drawing her to him, fascinating her with his presence—”

  “How can you possibly know this?” interrupted Dalakis. Normally his wide face appears impassive, but when he asks a question he begins to blink rapidly.

  “Pacheco has an office in the medical center next to the hospital. The receptionist and my wife are close friends. It was Pacheco’s nurse who told this story to the receptionist. You can imagine how little time Pacheco has with his patients. It takes weeks to get to see him, then you have to wait hours in his office. The nurse said that Pacheco would see the Mendez girl almost every afternoon. One day there was an emergency and she had to interrupt them. She went in and found Pacheco with his pants off. You’d think he’d be ashamed, but he just laughed. Of course he’s had her too, as well as the receptionist.”

  “How can you tell these stories?” cried Dalakis. He was standing now and acted as if Malgiolio’s words caused him physical pain. “Don’t you realize you’re a guest in his house?”

  “It’s true,” said Malgiolio calmly. “Do you want the name of the receptionist? She can tell you all sorts of dirt.”

  “What happened after that?” I asked. “Surely there’s more.” What amused me was the hushed tone Malgiolio had adopted for his tale, like the radio dramatizations of our youth.

  Malgiolio put the photograph back on the mantel, then took out a cigarette, lit it, and tossed the match into the fireplace. It was a colored cigarette, dark blue, and looked expensive. “Well,” he continued, “they kept meeting like that. She’d go to his office and he’d have his way with her. Maybe he even saw her outside the office, I don’t know. The nurse, of course, saw her all the time and so did the receptionist. Soon they knew something was wrong. She was pale and tired looking. It was the nurse who first realized the girl was pregnant. Her breasts got larger; she began wearing baggy clothes. It was almost summer. Shortly she would graduate from school. The nurse said she could hear the girl crying when she went in to see Pacheco. And he too seemed upset; you at least have to give him credit for that. Anyway, the next thing they knew the girl was dead.” Malgiolio paused to tap cigarette ash into the fireplace, then he glanced at Dalakis, who was staring furiously down at the carpet.

  I knew that Malgiolio was expecting us to ask the obvious question, but I kept silent. The story struck me as preposterous. I wondered where Pacheco was. It was nearly 7:15. I disliked talking scandal about a man in his own house.

  “Not only was she dead,” said Malgiolio, continuing despite our silence, “but she died under strange circumstances. She was the last patient to see Pacheco and when the nurse went home the girl was still there. The next day the nurse heard she had been rushed to the emergency room late that night with internal hemorrhaging. Pacheco was with her. Officially, the cause of death was tied to her operation. Can you believe it? Five months after the removal of her spleen and she has a relapse. But perhaps the explanation was more complicated. In any case, the facts are that she began hemorrhaging and died. To the nurse it seemed perfectly clear that the doctor had performed an illegal abortion that had gone wrong.”

  “Why didn’t she report him?” I asked.

  “What, and never work again? No, she knew better than to open her mouth. The doctor too was extremely upset. After all, it was his child and, as I say, he probably loved her. The father, Jorge Mendez, never recovered. You should see her tomb, an elaborate mountain of granite topped by an angel. A few days after it was in place, Mendez had his accident.”

  “I still don’t believe it,” said Dalakis, “and even if the story’s true, what makes you think the girl in the picture is Jorge Mendez’s daughter? Did you ever see her?”

  “Just once. She was with her father at the opera. But of course she’s also been described to me—those eyes, those high cheekbones, one wouldn’t forget them easily. Yes, that’s the girl all right: Cecilia Mendez.”

  Dalakis seemed torn between refuting Malgiolio and telling some story of his own which might betray a confidence. He took a sip of Scotch, then walked to the mantel and reached out for the picture. His hands were so big that I was afraid he might accidentally break the glass. As he looked at the pict
ure, his anger disappeared and he began to look sad. He was easily eight inches taller than Malgiolio and standing together they appeared to be preparing a comic turn. It is odd the relationship you have with people you’ve known since childhood—not love, not hate. It’s more like they are of your own skin. Looking at Malgiolio and Dalakis, while musing on their comic potential, was like looking at myself.

  “You see,” said Dalakis after some moments, “I recognize the girl and her name isn’t Cecilia Mendez and Pacheco never made love to her. That’s his daughter, his illegitimate daughter, and the reason I know is because she was a close friend of my own daughter. Her name is Sarah something, I can’t remember her last name. She’s in school in Paris now.”

  “And I suppose you knew her personally,” said Malgiolio, his voice skirting the edge of mockery. Despite the mistakes in his life, he was not a man who felt much doubt.

  “She came to my house a few times several years ago. Pacheco had just brought her up from the south and enrolled her in the university. My daughter, you know, is an art teacher in a high school. This woman, Sarah, was also an art student, and she and my daughter were in three or four classes together.”

  Malgiolio raised his eyebrows and glanced at me as if seeking my agreement that Dalakis was mistaken. To tell the truth, I felt a little skeptical. I had my own idea who the woman was. “You mean he put her through the university?” I asked. “Did she live in this house as well?”

  Dalakis stood facing us with his back to the mantel. “No, she lived in the women’s dormitory. Actually, only a few people knew she was Pacheco’s daughter. It’s quite an odd story. He didn’t even know the girl existed until about seven years ago. Her mother was the wife of another doctor in the south, the doctor who took Pacheco into partnership after he finished his residency. He was an older man with a young wife. Well, you know Pacheco’s reputation with women. They had a brief affair. But when the child was born she swore it was her husband’s.

  “Anyway, they broke off and their lives drifted apart. Pacheco started his own practice. The old doctor and his wife were later divorced. She taught school for a while, then opened a tea shop. The old doctor saw the girl regularly. Then, about eight years ago, he died. The woman expected he’d leave the girl something in his will. She was seventeen and it was probably around then that the picture was taken. Well, the old doctor didn’t leave her a cent. Perhaps he knew the girl wasn’t his. The mother had little money but she wanted the girl to go to the university. She was a very talented artist and it seemed a pity for her to spend her life in some small town.

  “The upshot was that the woman contacted Pacheco and confessed that the girl was his daughter after all. Many men wouldn’t have believed her, but Pacheco believed her and, what’s more, he offered to support the girl and pay for her education while also promising not to divulge the secret of her parenthood.”

  Dalakis walked back to his chair and slowly lowered himself onto the leather cushion until his legs stretched straight out in front of him on the carpet. I noticed holes in the soles of his unpolished black shoes. Malgiolio stood by the bookshelves leafing through a book of photographs for no more reason, I’m sure, than to irritate Dalakis.

  “The girl came up here. Of course she had no idea that Pacheco was her father. They saw quite a lot of each other. He took her to dinner and the theater or they would meet and talk over a cup of coffee. She was a lively and attractive girl and Pacheco must have liked her. As you might imagine, the girl soon developed a crush on him. She saw him as a handsome man, a friend of her parents, who was going out of his way to help her get settled in a new city. She began to flirt with him, show him that she was available, but he ignored her. She began to doubt herself, to think, perhaps, she was even ugly. Truly, we only have to look at that photograph to see how foolish that was.

  “Pacheco realized there were going to be problems. He began to see less of her, which made matters worse. She became desperate. Then one night, very late, she came to his house. Pacheco was already in bed. She waited for him to come down, waited in this very room. When Pacheco entered she was standing by the fireplace. She was wearing a black coat. He approached to kiss her cheek. When he had nearly reached her, she opened the coat. Underneath, she was naked. She didn’t say anything; she was too frightened.”

  Dalakis lifted his hands and pressed them together in front of his mouth. Then he blew through them, making a rushing noise. Malgiolio had stopped leafing through the book and was waiting to hear what Dalakis would say next.

  “Can you imagine that moment? Of course Pacheco looked at her. Who can blame him? Think of her immaculate, untouched body. But at last he turned away. ‘Do you find me so ugly?’ she called after him. He stood with his back to her. ‘Ugly?’ he asked. ‘You are extremely beautiful. Unluckily, you are also my daughter.’ Of course, she was astonished and at first she didn’t believe him. Pacheco told her the entire story. Then she felt humiliated but Pacheco said there was nothing to feel guilty about, that only a simple mistake had been made.

  “But, in fact, it wasn’t so simple. Even though she knew Pacheco was her father, her feelings were unchanged. She told my daughter about it. She said she still desired him, that she hungered for him. It was not long after that she went to study in Paris. She couldn’t stay in the same city with Pacheco, couldn’t stay in the same country.

  “My daughter hears from her occasionally. She knows no men, won’t go out. Here she is, one of the most beautiful women in the city of Paris, yet she refuses to give herself to another man because the man she loves, whom she passionately desires, happens to be her father. Amazing, isn’t it? If you look at the picture closely, you can even see a resemblance—those almond-shaped eyes, for instance, and that wide chin. . . .”

  There was an abrupt squawking noise as Malgiolio tilted back his head and laughed up at the ceiling. “That’s the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard. Really, Carl, you should have been an actor. I’m not saying Pacheco didn’t have a daughter under such circumstances, but I’ll swear that the woman in the photograph is not she.”

  I stood up and walked over to Dalakis. The story struck me as both charming and foolish. I put my hand on his shoulder. “You really are an incurable romantic, Carl. How could you bring yourself to believe such a thing?”

  “It’s true,” said Dalakis, half angry and half laughing. “The girl really is his daughter and it was my own daughter who told me the story. Why should I lie to you?”

  He asked the question so forcefully that I retreated a little. “I don’t mean to say you’re lying, but even if your story is true, why are you so certain the girl in the picture is Pacheco’s daughter? You said you saw her a number of years ago. Perhaps it’s someone else, some third woman.”

  “And I suppose you know who it is,” said Malgiolio.

  His tone irritated me. “Perhaps I do,” I said. Walking to the liquor cabinet, I poured myself more mineral water. Then I looked again at the photograph. There was a yielding quality to the face, as if she were willing to let herself be taken but only by the right man. Truly, she was offering herself, offering and refusing at the same time. Returning the picture to the mantel, I walked toward the window. I had no wish for Malgiolio to laugh at me as he had laughed at Dalakis. Why should I tell my story when there was no hope of communication?

  “Don’t let Malgiolio upset you,” said Dalakis, standing up, “you know how he is.”

  Yes, I thought, he’s the man who squandered a third of a million in thirteen months. I looked out at the street. There was no one in sight. Over the buildings to my left a huge column of smoke rose up in the shape of a dog’s head. The windows were the sort that had to be cranked open. I opened one, then sat down on the red cushion. Again there were gunshots and sirens, but they seemed far away. Behind me Dalakis and Malgiolio were quarreling about their respective stories.

  The story I knew about the woman in the pic
ture was quite different. I’d heard it from a reporter at the paper who had pointed her out to me in a restaurant several years before. Her name was Andrea Morales and her husband was an engineer for a highway construction company. Her beauty was well known and before her marriage she had been an actress and appeared in a couple of television plays.

  She had met Pacheco at a dinner party. She and her husband had no children and my friend suggested she was bored and had no idea what to do with herself. Of course Pacheco wanted her. He called her, he wrote to her, and eventually they had an affair that went on for some months. Then her husband learned about it. He was deeply in love with his wife. Distraught and miserable, he took a bottle of sleeping pills. She found him on the kitchen floor after she came back from being with Pacheco. He was barely alive. She got him to the hospital and for a week he remained in a coma.

  The husband recovered, but not completely. Physically he seemed perfect, but he had some nervous disorder. His wife took care of him. Even so, he no longer trusted her or found pleasure in her company. He was constantly making scenes in public, even bursting into tears. The woman decided to remain with him no matter what, feeling she was responsible for his condition and that perhaps he would improve. But, according to my friend, he showed no signs of improving and the two of them, man and wife, remained locked in this suspicious and guilt-ridden relationship without pleasure or love.

  Malgiolio and Dalakis continued to argue. It occurred to me that even if we were wrong about the photograph, the stories themselves were probably true. And of course there were other stories about Pacheco and women, there were hundreds of stories. As I walked back across the library, I was struck by the idea that the stories probably said more about the men who had told them than about the photograph or even Pacheco— Dalakis’s story was romantic and basically kind, Malgiolio’s showed envy and lasciviousness. And my own, what did my story tell? And who, if anyone, was right?