“I’m not sorry,” Ruth said.
“My name is Noemí. I’ve seen you before, but I’m not sure you understand me.”
“Not sorry.”
Noemí didn’t think the girl was going to offer her more than those scant words, but suddenly Ruth lifted her head and stared at her.
“Mother cannot, will not protect you. No one will protect you.”
Mother is dead, Noemí thought.You killed her. But she doubted there was any point in reminding someone who was a corpse, long buried, about such things. Noemí stretched out a hand, touching the girl’s shoulder. She felt real under her fingers.
“You have to kill him. Father will never let you go. That was my mistake. I didn’t do it right.” The girl shook her head.
“How should you have done it?” Noemí asked.
“I didn’t do it right. He is a god! He is a god!”
The girl began sobbing and clasped both hands against her mouth, rocking back and forth. Noemí tried to embrace her, but Ruth flung herself against the floor and curled up there, her hands still covering her mouth. Noemí knelt down next to her.
“Ruth, don’t cry,” she said, and as she spoke Ruth’s body turned gray, white speckles of mold spreading across her face and hands, and the girl wept, black tears sliding down her cheeks, bile trickling out of her mouth and nose.
Ruth began to tear at herself with her nails, letting out a hoarse scream. Noemí pushed herself backward, bumping against the bed. The girl was writhing; now she scratched at the floor, her nails tearing at the wood, driving splinters into her palms.
Noemí clacked her teeth together in fear and thought to cry too, but then she recalled the words, the mantra.
“Open your eyes,” Noemí said.
And Noemí did. She opened her eyes, and the room was dark. She was alone. It rained again. She stood up and slid the curtain away. The distant sound of thunder was unsettling. Where was her bracelet? The bracelet against the evil eye. But that would do no good now. Inside the night table’s drawer she found her pack of cigarettes and her lighter; those were still there.
Noemí flicked the lighter on, watching the flame bloom, and then closed it, returning it to the drawer.
22
Francis came back to see her the next morning, giving her another small amount of the tincture and pointing out the items that were safe to eat. When night fell, he reappeared with a tray of food and told her that after she finished her dinner they were supposed to speak with Virgil, who awaited them in the office.
It was too dark, even with the oil lamp in Francis’s hands, to look at the portraits running along the wall that led toward the library, but she wished she could have stopped and gazed at Ruth’s picture. It was an impulse born of curiosity and sympathy. She had been a prisoner, like her.
Noemí was struck by the unpleasant scent of moldy books as soon as Francis opened the door to the office. Funny how she’d gotten used to it and barely noticed it in days past. She wondered if that meant the tincture was doing its job.
Virgil sat behind the desk. The subdued lighting in the paneled room gave him the appearance of a Caravaggio painting and rendered his face almost bloodless. There was a stillness to his body, like that of a wild animal camouflaging itself. His fingers were laced together, and when he saw them he leaned forward in greeting, smiling.
“You seem to be doing better,” Virgil said. Noemí sat before him, Francis at her side, her mute stare the one answer to his question. “I’ve asked you here because we need to clarify a few points. Francis says you understand the situation and you’re willing to cooperate with us,” Virgil continued.
“If you mean I realize I can’t leave this horrid house, yes, that has become unfortunately clear.”
“Don’t be sore about it, Noemí—it’s quite a lovely house once it gets to know you. Now, I guess the question is whether you are determined to be a nuisance or whether you’ll willingly join the family?”
On the walls the three deer heads cast long shadows. “You have a very interesting notion of ‘willingly,’ ” Noemí said. “Are you offering any other option to me? I don’t think so. I’ve decided to stay alive, if that is what you’d like to know. I wouldn’t want to end up in a pit, like those poor miners.”
“We didn’t dump them in a pit. They’re all buried in the cemetery. And they needed to die. You must make the soil fertile.”
“With human bodies.Mulch, isn’t that right?”
“They would have died anyway. It was an assortment of underfed peasants, riddled with lice.”
“Was your first wife also a peasant, riddled with lice? Did you also use her to make the soil more fertile?” Noemí asked. She wondered if her portrait was hanging outside, with the pictures of all the other Doyles. A wretched young woman with her chin up, trying to maintain her smile for the camera.
Virgil shrugged. “No. But she was inadequate all the same, and I can’t say that I miss her.”