“You place the gills on a paper surface and they leave an impression of it. It’s used to help identify mushrooms. And the botanical illustrations, they are beautiful. Such colors. I might…perhaps…”
“Perhaps what?” she asked when he didn’t continue.
He clutched the red piece of cloth in his left hand tightly. “Perhaps you’d like to see the prints sometime? I’m sure it doesn’t sound exciting, but if you find yourself terribly bored it might be a distraction.”
“I would like to, thanks,” she said, helping him out since he seemed to have lost all knowledge of words and was looking mutely at the ground, as if the right sentence might sprout there.
He smiled at her, carefully setting the red handkerchief back on top of the mushrooms. The mist had thinned as they spoke, and now she could see the tombstones, the trees, and the shrubs.
“At last, I am no longer blind,” Noemí said. “There is sunlight! And air.”
“Yes. You could make your way back on your own,” he replied, a note of disenchantment in his voice as he looked around. “Although you could keep me company for a while longer. If you are not too busy,” he added cautiously.
She had been eager to leave the cemetery a few minutes before, but now it was all peaceful and quiet. Even the mist seemed pleasant. She couldn’t believe she’d been scared. Why, the figure she had seen must have been Francis walking around and poking at the ground for mushrooms.
“I might have a cigarette,” she said and lit one with nimble fingers. She offered him the pack, but Francis shook his head.
“My mother wants to have a chat with you about that,” he said, looking serious.
“Is she going to tell me smoking is a filthy habit again?” Noemí asked as she took a puff and tilted her head up. She liked doing that. It enhanced her long, elegant neck, which was among her finest features and made her feel a bit like a movie star. Hugo Duarte and all the other boys fawning around her certainly thought it was a charming detail.
She was vain, yes. Though she didn’t think it was a sin. Noemí looked a bit like Katy Jurado when she struck the right pose, and of course she knew what exact pose and angle to strike. But she’d abandoned the theater classes. Nowadays she wished to be a Ruth Benedict or a Margaret Mead.
“Maybe. The family insists on certain healthy habits. No smoking, no coffee, no loud music or noises, cold showers, closed curtains, mild words and—”
“Why?”
“It’s the way it’s always been done at High Place,” Francis said blandly.
“The cemetery sounds more lively,” she said. “Maybe we should fill a flask with whiskey and have a party here, under that pine tree. I’ll blow smoke rings your way, and we can try and find those hallucinogenic mushrooms. And if it turns out they do indeed induce a sort of lust or frenzy and you get fresh with me, I won’t mind one bit.”
She was joking. Anybody would have known it was a joke. Her tone of voice possessed the dramatic intonation that takes place when a woman is giving a grand performance. But he took it all wrong, no longer blushing but paling.
He shook his head. “My mother, she would say that’s wrong, to suggest…it’s wrong…”
He trailed off, though it was not necessary that he elaborate. He seemed plainly disgusted.
She pictured him talking to his mother, whispering, the wordfilthon his lips and both of them nodding, agreeing. Superior and inferior types, and Noemí did not belong in the first category, did not belong in High Place, did not deserve anything but scorn.
“I don’t care what your mother thinks, Francis,” Noemí said as she dropped the cigarette and crushed it under the heel of her shoe with two vicious stomps. She began walking briskly. “I’m headed back. You’re a complete bore.”
A few steps later she stopped and crossed her arms, turning around.
He had followed her and was close behind.
Noemí took a deep breath. “Let me be. I don’t need you to show me the way.”
Francis bent down and carefully picked up a mushroom that she had accidentally trampled over in her mad dash toward the cemetery gates. It was satiny-white, the stem had broken off from the cap, and he held both in the palm of his hand.
“A destroying angel,” he muttered.
“Sorry?” she asked, confused.
“A poisonous mushroom. Its spore print is white, which is how you can distinguish it from an edible one.”
He placed the mushroom back on the ground and stood up, brushing away the dirt from his trousers. “I must seem ridiculous to you,” he said quietly. “A ridiculous fool clutching his mother’s skirts. You’d be right too. I dare not do anything to upset her, or to upset Great Uncle Howard. Especially Uncle Howard.”
He looked at her, and she realized that the contempt in his eyes hadn’t been meant for her, but for himself. She felt awful, and she remembered how Catalina had told her she was capable of leaving deep scars in people if she didn’t watch her scalding tongue.