Once again Ana regretted having enrolled Marisol in a private Catholic school. The school fees were outrageous. But public school was no good, with the teachers always on strike and the lousy facilities. Marisol needed a private school so she could have the best teachers, a chance to learn a second language, to make something of herself. Employers advertised jobs in Mexico by specifying the age and even goddamn school a kid had to have graduated from. No students from the UNAM, no one over thirty-four, no married people, no kids, send a photograph, and indicate religion. Under those fucking circumstances you had to try to give your child an edge or they were going to be trampled upon by the richer kids from the Tec or the Anahuac; kids who had lighter skin, heavier wallets, and the right last names. No, Marisol needed this high school. If only Ana could afford it. Money was tight.
“I bet you’re not going to let me go on the class trip to Acapulco, either,” Marisol said as she tossed the egg on a plate and handed it to Ana. Then the girl cracked another egg and began frying it.
Ana leaned against the refrigerator and held the plate in one hand. “I don’t have the money.”
“You could ask Dad.”
As if that would help. Ana was supposed to receive alimony, but any cash from her ex-husband was sporadic and unpredictable. He had remarried and he had a new family; he didn’t trouble himself with the old one. Ana was grateful for this, since it meant he had stopped nagging her about moving back to Zacatecas so he could see his daughter. If she started complaining about the alimony he might start talking about that again, a topic Ana felt no desire to revisit.
“Your father won’t be able to help. This is not a field trip. It’s a glorified party, and I’m not paying so you can go get drunk on a beach. Plus, it’s the state with the highest concentration of vampire cartels. There are half a dozen different families disputing territory there. No damn way you are headed into that Necros nest.”
“Really, Mother? It’s the same everywhere.”
“No.” Ana shook her head again. “It’s not the same everywhere. There’s no vampire cartels chilling in Mexico City.”
“You yourself have told me that the gangs—”
“The human gangs are not going to leave you in an alley with your throat torn out,” she replied, slamming her plate against the kitchen counter.
Marisol looked at her. Ana recognized the same defiant stare she saw each morning in the mirror, the same hooded eyes and thin mouth. Marisol was a younger version of Ana, and this troubled her. She didn’t want her daughter to be like her, to make the same stupid mistakes.
“Look, Marisol, we just can’t afford it. All right?”
Marisol nodded. She had finished cooking her egg and turned off the stove. “Eat up. It’s getting cold,” her daughter muttered.
CHAPTER
9
The house was in the Colonia Roma, where Domingo seldom ventured. The Roma had been a fine area since the time when people rode carriages and ladies wore corsets. It was no longer aristocratic—the super wealthy lived in walled-off complexes or the newer Polanco and Lomas neighborhoods; yet it retained plenty of its grandeur and tradition, showcasing its history in its wide avenues, its parks, its boulevards, and a number of elegant old houses, very European. It was, nowadays, morphing into a hipster haven. The grungy elements of the area paired well with the bookstores, antique shops, art galleries, cafés, and restaurants with far too pricey items on the menu. A latte always went down better when you could pat yourself on the back and declare yourself très chic because you were having a snack at a butcher shop turned trendy eatery, right smack in front of a street where prostitutes lined up in the evenings to engage in their daily trade.
It was a place for sophisticated older people and hip young ones, with magnificent trees and faded mansions, a taco stand here and there to remind you it was not quite the Belle époque and you were still in Mexico City. It was not a place for Domingo, who preferred the downtown crowds, the pressure of people in the subway, the underpasses and alleys. There were too many private security guards walking around the Roma, who were eager to stop a young man in a cheap yellow jacket. They stared as he walked by, but if Domingo had learned a lesson in his short life it was to keep walking and stare straight ahead. The private security guards couldn’t arrest him, anyway. They could beat him if they didn’t like the look of him, but that was about it.
Domingo kept his head down and walked with his hands in his pockets as he checked the address again. It took him a while to find the house because the number was half-hidden behind a layer of graffiti. It was one of those old colonial houses that seemed like it would stand forever, braving earthquakes and pollution. The gate—an iron double-door—was rusty with age. The place looked abandoned. This was not entirely unusual. Yes, the area was now fashionable and gentrified, but there were houses here and there that had gone to hell in the ’80s and never recuperated, some of them occupied by upper-class squatters—university students and artists with proletarian leanings—and others by the regular, run-of-the-mill squatters who had never read Marx and did not give a fuck about globalization talk.
He wondered if he was at the wrong address. Domingo gave the gate an experimental push. It swung on its hinges, groaning a welcome. He closed the gate behind him and walked down a small inner courtyard, past a fountain decked with chipped blue tiles and to the door of the house itself.