Nogueira smoked and looked out at the dark night. He wore only an undershirt and briefs. The streetlights along the road to his house were so distant from one another that their wide orange pools of light were isolated and independent. They never overlapped. He’d left a single lamp on in the child’s bedroom, a small one that cast only a faint pink light. He assumed that anyone looking from outside would see his shadow, an enormous silhouette, looming behind him on the wall. He held the cigarette across the windowsill, and each time he wanted a puff he leaned out to keep the smoke outside. She detested smoke. And he hated having to smoke his last cigarette of the day this way, for often this was the moment of reflection and insight when pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Lately it’d become an excuse for not thinking of other things. The light outside was too dim to reflect off his wedding ring, but that gold band burned his finger like a white-hot brand. How can something in plain sight become invisible, only to materialize once more when someone notices it? Something gradually worn away to invisibility manifests itself because the glance of a stranger revives its essence. He inspected the ring on his finger and shook his head. He knew he couldn’t escape that insistent question. It wouldn’t let him sleep tonight.
He took a last long drag. He pulled at the cigarette so hard the heat seared his lungs, and then blew the smoke out sharply, sending it swirling as far from the house as he could. He stubbed it out against the exterior wall and put the butt into a plastic bag that was already half full. He closed the bag, folded it, and deposited it on the windowsill, leaving the window open a while longer to make sure the stink of tobacco wouldn’t be detected. He looked back toward the interior and grimaced at the smile of Minnie Mouse watching him from the bedspread. One by one he removed the stuffed animals from their pile on the pillow, opened the covers, and slipped into bed. He turned off the little pink-shaded Disney princess lamp.
BREAKING THROUGH THE SURFACE
Manuel opened his eyes to an entirely dark room. He realized he must have turned off the television sometime during the night. In his sleep he’d heard the boy crying, and she’d come to console him again. He left the bed and groped his way to the window, visible only because of the crack of light between the window sash and the outside shutter. He opened it, pushed back the shutter, and looked out.
The rain must have stopped hours earlier. There were some puddles, but the ground appeared to be mostly dry. Long shadows showed that the sun had only recently risen. He searched the bedsheets for the TV remote but couldn’t find it. He went around the bed and opened the desk drawer. He took out his watch but didn’t touch the withered gardenias that seemed to beckon to him. He shut the drawer quickly but couldn’t escape the heavy floral scent. The perfume mixed with a musty odor like that of a sacristy chest, a blend of mothballs and ancient wood. The mix of smells evoked the confident gaze of the boy in the photo. Now, surrounded by dry petals, that print seemed more than ever the photo of a dead man.
He looked into the mirror. His face was ashen, the aftermath of the insomnia that had kept him writing until dawn. He looked over his shoulder at the closely scribbled pages that covered the desktop. Others had slid to the floor, so that an avalanche of paper now presented a snowy track across the room to the bed. He gazed stupidly at them for a couple of moments. When he turned back to the mirror his eyes were as clouded as the early-morning sky of Galicia, masked by a film of pallid sadness. He rubbed a hand across his face in an effort to shake off his fatigue. He raked his fingers through his short dark hair and noticed there was much more gray at his temples than just a few days before. His cheeks were dark with what was now a salt-and-pepper morning shadow. His lips were as bright and red as those of a sad clown. When he tried to smile, no more than a mild tremor crossed the mask his face had become, as rigid as if a drunken dentist had injected him with too much novocaine or his face were paralyzed with Botox.
“You can’t keep this up,” he told the man in the mirror.
He pushed the flowers aside. In the back of the drawer he located the card the priest had given him at the gate of the estate. He took the photo and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket, feeling the bent corners catch the pocket’s satin lining and cling to it like a living creature.
He went down the hall and followed a trail of bedsheets deposited before open doors until he found the innkeeper’s wife. She was humming a little tune as she cleaned guest rooms. Her almost childish treble was such a contrast with her bulk that it brought a grin to his face.
Manuel leaned through the doorway and held out the card. “Can you give me directions to this address?”
Dutifully she studied it. When she looked up, he saw her curiosity had been piqued. “That’s where they exorcise the meigallo. Did you know that?”
He was confused. “The what?”
“O meigallo: demons, the evil eye, the company of the devil.”
Manuel blinked in wide-eyed surprise. He looked again to see if the woman was teasing him. She wasn’t.
“Explain that to me, if you’d be so kind.”
“Of course I’ll explain,” she said in a kindly voice. She dropped what she was doing and came out to him in the hall with the card still in her hand. She pointed to it. “This has been a holy site of pilgrimage almost since time began. No other place in Galicia is more sacred. That’s where people go to have o meigallo or demo cast out.”
He leaned to peer into her face to see if she was sincere. He found it hard to believe such superstition could exist in this day and age.
She gave him a stern look in return. “See here, I’m telling you God’s honest truth.”
Manuel accepted that but didn’t know what to say.
“God is real, but so is the devil. Evil hearts summon him or he comes on his own, creeping into our lives and making us miserable.”
Manuel reached out for the card, intending to take it back. He’d had enough of this superstitious talk. But she held it tight and didn’t let go. She backed away with a stern expression. “You can’t fool me,” she scolded him. “You’re one of those nonbelievers, aren’t you? Then let me tell you a story.”
Manuel glanced up the hall, ready to walk away from her and her story. But the innkeeper’s wife had been friendly and helpful to him since the day he arrived. And after all, he was a writer; writers should never refuse a story. He shrugged.