Becoming Marta Read online

  “Follow her! No. Leave it alone. What for? Better that we go home,” Marta said in a hushed voice. “Give me another smoke, will you, Baltasar? I’ll buy the next pack.”

  They made the return trip in silence. Marta realized that the distance between her and this woman was insurmountable, or that she at least was incapable of traveling it. That lady might be her mother, but she was also a stranger. She was above all a stranger. Had she not been informed a week ago that this was her mother, Marta easily could have passed right by her without knowing it. With the woman she had known as her mom, on the other hand, she knew the smell of her hair, the sweat of her crossed hands, the sigh of her breath when they prayed together at night, the content of her drawers, and what she had inside her purse.

  Marta had been very young when she first found out. Her nanny Toña had told her after Marta had poured hot soup on Toña’s uniform. “Spoiled brat,” the nanny had hissed. “You can tell that you’re the daughter of a nobody.” It was an open secret among the help: besides her nannies, two cooks and three chauffeurs had told her the news. They told her out of anger, although Ruben, the young chauffeur, had told her in a bid to gain her confidence because he’d hoped to get between her legs.

  Marta never discussed this with the woman who raised her, the woman she knew as her mother. The fear of confronting the subject was such that she never got up the nerve to try. But anything seemed possible now that her father had gotten involved with Gaby. She could not find the courage to discuss it with him either. He had always been absent, and now, with his wife dead, he had abandoned Marta.

  4

  The Sale

  Death, in the end, is only death. We start preparing to face it from the moment we are born. We try to deny it, but deep inside we know it will come. Death is too present in life for us not to be conscious of it: an obituary, crosses on roads, the news. We live regretting death. Someone close to us dies and we may spend the rest of our lives remembering that person. The absence hurts, but that very sadness signifies that at least there was something, something valuable—someone whom we loved. With betrayal and with lies, on the other hand, the only thing that remains is doubt. That vacuum cannot be filled with memories; rather, it is filled with conjecture. With death we lose the present and the future, but there is always the past. With betrayal the past evaporates as well, leaving only uncertainty. With death life perhaps loses its color. With betrayal it loses its form, so that we are left floating in a vacuum with nothing to grasp on to.

  Standing in front of the pool, Marta cried. Her mother’s death had been a tragedy. But her father’s betrayal, his turning into someone unrecognizable and acting in the most ignoble manner toward his wife, the woman who raised her, her mother—not to mention the family and the family name—leaving Marta forsaken, alone, and once again obliged to understand who she was; that was another thing altogether. We are never prepared for betrayal, she thought.

  Marta had been sure of one thing and one thing only: she was a Tordella de la Vega. Even if she was not her mother’s biological daughter, she was her father’s—at least that’s what she’d been told. After her mother had gone to a better place—how could people utter those words without cracking up?—Marta believed that her dad would take up his rightful role as head of the family. Instead, he had opted for the role of clown.

  Standing there at the party, crying, Marta recalled how everyone around her had tried to hide her real mother’s identity. Their attempts had failed. Nonetheless, Marta had never imagined that her father would marry another woman.

  “There you are. I’ve been looking for you for a half hour,” said Mau. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Memories,” said Marta, wiping away her tears.

  “Your face is streaked with black.”

  Marta started trying to rub it off with her hands.

  “You’re making it worse. C’mon, let’s go.”

  In the guest bathroom, one of two nearest the palapa, Marta washed her face with the English lavender soap that her mom always kept on hand. The entire house was laid out in aromatherapy zones: lavender in the guest bathrooms, magnolia in Marta’s room, tea rose in her mom’s room, sandalwood in the guest room, orange blossom in the second guest room, jasmine in the third. Not only did each bathroom feature its own fragrant soap, Marti also ordered its corresponding tree or flower planted outside each room. Whenever they had guests, a fresh blossom or sprig was put in the room. In addition, each room had its own mural by the Oaxacan painter Francisco Carbadillo. Her detail-oriented mother, always the perfect hostess, replaced by the idiotic Gaby; her house usurped by someone who couldn’t tell the difference between magnolia and jasmine.

  “Want to get high?” whispered Marta.

  “I can’t. I made a vow,” said Mau.

  “You and your vows.”

  Despite being a rebel, a real son of a bitch, and a complete hedonist who generally had no morals, Mau had a predilection for vows, and when he made them he always fulfilled them—in that he was unbending.

  “What did you promise now?” asked Marta.

  “No drugs—no pot, not even aspirin, no nothing. No whisky, tequila, vodka, liquor.”

  “Beer?”

  “Sure, a couple pale ales are okay, but I’m giving up protein shakes.”

  “Why?”

  “It got to the point where I was practically on a liquid diet. I’d get up hungover, go from the gym to the steam room, from the steam room to the office, gulp down a protein shake, and go party. One day I realized that I’d gone a long time without eating at a table.”

  “You should come to brunch tomorrow. Gaby thinks she’s Lady Di. She assumes she has to keep the help busy just because they’re there. It’s going to be like the buffet at the Carlyle.”

  “Who else is staying at your house?”

  “Just us. Gaby wanted to invite some of her nobody friends, but I told her I’d raise hell if they showed up. Although her daughter will be here tomorrow. I met her at the wedding, and she gave off good vibes, so I couldn’t say no.”

  “The artist?”

  “Yes,” Marta said, her face returning to its carefully made-up state. “Anyway, tonight I’m going to put on a show. That’s why I want you to come to breakfast tomorrow. I’ve decided I want to sell Villa del Mar, and I know Gaby is going to go nuts. The silly bitch thought that Dad came with a house, boat, and cars—the whole package. Let’s see how much the miserable gold digger likes him now. Let’s see if charity is among her virtues.”

  “C’mon, crazy. Are you going to leave your old man with no dough? What’s he supposed to do?”

  “Let him pull his own weight.”

  “He’s never worked a day in his life.”

  Marta raised one eyebrow à la Maria Felix and put on her best what do I care? expression.

  “You’re a troublemaker. But your old man will land on his feet. Maybe the Hernándezes will give him a gig selling houses as an exclusive broker. He could live off those commissions. He knows everyone who is anyone.”

  “Honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I mean, I’m not going to let him starve to death. He knows I’m there for him. He can even live with me if he wants, but I’m not subsidizing that bitch. So you’ll come tomorrow?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. C’mon, let’s go to the party. I’m craving a lesbian.”

  “I hate to break it to you, dearest, but there’s not a single lesbian at this party. Maybe with enough motivation I could give it a whirl. Although now that I think about it, maybe Gaby’s daughter, but she won’t be here until tomorrow.”

  “No, silly,” Mau said, choking on laughter. “A Lesbian is a Clamato and beer.”

  “Dude, I never know with you.”

  5

  The Party

  The waiter brought Mau a glass of Clamato and beer. It was spiced with Tabasco and lots of lime and helped Mau forget his craving for tequila. The party remained unchanged since he’d found Marta crying, lookin
g out into the darkness. Gaby strutted about the palapa like she owned it. Dressed to kill, she was obviously enjoying her display of power.

  Mau could understand his friend’s thinking. It was not enough to be from one of the best families in Mexico; you also had to have money. True, the family name mattered. Some families managed to broker advantageous marriages thanks to their lineage, but anyone with money could buy a family name. The rules of social chess were fluid. If it had once had been a truism in the complex chess of marriage that “wife takes secretary,” it was no longer so clear, especially when the secretary could be an Argentine model or a Russian ballerina. Mexico’s riches had attracted Europeans from the time of the conquistadors, and that interest remained very much alive today. The number of available Europeans had grown considerably, but not so the available money. In the end the family name had to be backed up with money. The jingle of coin was the drumbeat to which every surname marched.

  Now Marta’s dad and his new wife would be expelled. Marta knew that she could return to the coast whenever she wanted. Mau surveyed the male guests; every last one would offer his house to Marta despite her awful reputation.

  There was Alonso, the architect responsible for every house on the Pacific, and his handsome wife, both from good families. There was Carlos Rizales, the founding partner of one of the most important law firms. Fernando del Valle, consultant to three presidents and survivor of the political transition. Eduardo Garcia Garza, an industrialist from Monterrey; Mau wasn’t sure what he did, but he thought it might involve steel. There was Francisco López Sanchez, a car distributor and assembly plant owner. Fred Vargas, who was in wine. Coqui, who was in coffee. Of course, some of the fortunes had diminished, but they’d managed to hold on to their properties. There were the Gonzálezes, the Torreses, the Riveros—everyone at the party was a somebody. The truth was that Pedro and Gaby, without Marta’s dough, would soon be nobodies.

  Mau ordered a beer. Desperate for tequila, he savored squelching his impulse the way an anorexic enjoys taming her appetite. He observed Marta looking ever so poised. She was a different person since her mother’s death. Before, she’d be blasted by now or else holed up in her room watching television, cursing the world and not caring what they thought about her. But now she had a goal, and it wasn’t just to get Gaby out of the way. She was going to destroy Gaby, punish her dad, then forgive him, and in the process become her mother’s daughter, her grandmother’s granddaughter. Mau could already glimpse the Tordella de la Vega brilliance about her: the ability to say just the right thing, to dress gracefully, to receive guests like a queen, and charm anyone. But on top of all that, Marta’s grandmother and mother had done something with their lives. They were not mere social butterflies; they were queen bees, hardworking creators of beehives and honey. Marta’s grandmother was largely responsible for vaccinating the majority of Mexican children; it was she who started the fashion for charity’s grand dames to go into towns and administer vaccines. Soon all of Mexico started doing the same thing. And Marta’s mom had her maternity clinics. Mau recalled the inauguration of the last clinic, when Marta’s mom was already ill. She had looked supremely dignified wearing a scarf on her head. Mau was with them in the car when at the last minute Marti had pulled off her wig, saying that too many women could not afford to buy someone else’s hair. She was always thinking about others. With that she’d put on the scarf and showed up looking even more elegant. Did she know? thought Mau. Did she know that Marta would start to straighten out? The black sheep of the family, the troublemaker at school, the junkie, the girl with the eating disorder, the rebel, the lost one. Mau was seeing her transform into something magnificent right in front of his eyes.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” said Marta, pulling him out of his thoughts.

  “If your mom could see you . . .”

  “What?”

  “If your mom could see you now, she’d be proud.”

  “You know, Mau, you may think I’m crazy, but I believe she can see me. I believe she is watching me. My friends in Switzerland would make fun of me whenever I related the things that my nannies said. But even though I knew they were ridiculous stories, and even though I told them in part to amuse the other girls and in part because I missed my nannies, I did believe them. That stuff about the evil eye and how you’d become stiff if you caught a draft. That’s the problem with being raised by the help. We never outgrow their superstitions.”

  Marta took in the party. It bothered her to see the guests carrying on like merrymakers. What were they celebrating? How dare they show their faces. They’d been her mother’s friends. They had worshipped her, and yet here they were paying tribute to Gaby. She’d expected a certain amount of loyalty, some show of backbone, or what people call consistency. Or was it good sense? What was the word? Something like “constitution,” when people didn’t behave like spineless mollusks. Was it “coherence”?

  She wanted her mother’s friends to be sad. She wanted them to dress in black and flagellate themselves like the men who played the role of the Christ of Iztapalapa. She wanted them to take her side against her father and against Gaby the usurper. But, of course, these were the same people who attended parties for thieving ex-politicians turned businessmen.

  There was Juan Martínez, who had been jailed for taking dollars from Arizmendi’s kidnapper in his brokerage houses. The Sánchez Esquerras had sold the very house where over one million dollars in cash had been found. They couldn’t say that they didn’t know anything about the deal, because they’d had the nerve to brag about receiving the sum for the sale in cash.

  Like all ecosystems, the city bred the sort of individual who could survive and reproduce in that sort of environment. Just like the desertbred scorpions and tumbleweed, Mexico City produced people who were able to battle, live, flourish, and prosper in a place that was overpopulated, poor, contaminated, and corrupt. It took a very specific individual to survive and reach the pyramid’s apex: cold, highly adaptable, able to get on well with people, capable of seducing anyone. Chameleonlike beings, they were agile, mutant, and above all else they knew how to keep up appearances.

  What were they doing here? Did they come for the food, the drink, or because they liked the house? They came to see and be seen, to say they’d been there, to broker deals. Marta wanted nothing to do with them. She wanted to knock them out with a move she’d learned in kickboxing class.

  On the other hand, these were the same people who had watched her grow up. They were the only people she knew. Many of them had attended her parents’ wedding. Marta had watched the video a little while ago. One sad afternoon she’d gone through sixteen hours of home movies without stopping; it was the only heritage she had left. The images on the screen, converted into a time machine, showed the wedding, Marta’s baptism, her first steps, and featured many of the same people whom she now despised, some of whom were carrying on as if nothing had changed.

  “Bring me a tequila, ’cause it’s showtime. No, better yet, let’s get some dice and make a game of it. Let chance decide how I’ll proceed,” she told Mau.

  They sat down on leather seats illuminated by the light from the pool while Marta laid out the rules of the game. “If I roll high, I’ll do it tiger-style. Blast the music and dance on a table. When Gaby comes to grumble, I’ll throw her out while screaming at the top of my lungs that I’m selling the house.”

  “That spectacle will cost you two hundred thousand dollars on the sale of the house,” Mau said.

  “You think? Because of the scandal? You know what? It would be like a parting blow to the old Marta; it’d be the last big hurrah. Man, I haven’t even changed into the new Marta yet, and I already miss the old one.”

  “Second option?”

  “Okay, if I roll low, I’ll do it serpent-style. I’ll tell Alonso’s wife first so that she can gossip about it, and Alonso, who’s like a lousy little girl, will tell everyone. Then we can have fun figuring out if Gaby always has that sour-
lemon face or if she’s put it on because she’s heard the news.”

  “I prefer that option.”

  “So, go on. Blow on the dice.”

  “What about the third option?”

  “You’ve thought of another way?”

  “Yeah, the decent option, the normal one.”

  Marta looked doubtful.

  “The one where you inform Gaby and your dad about your plans.”

  “Fuck off. Do you think I’m capable of that?”

  “Not really, but I wanted to see your face when I proposed it. Besides, you know I’m right. It’s the decent thing to do.”

  “Okay, so if I roll a straight flush, then I’ll do that because it would mean that the gods truly want me to reform. C’mon, blow.”

  Marta shook the cup and rolled five dice onto the table. It was a low roll. She would break the news serpent-style.

  6

  The Trust Fund

  Marti had no time to spare. The cancer was spreading, and she needed to leave her affairs in order. But how was she to repair the damage done by years of negligence in just a few months? The way one repairs a broken fence, with care and money. She worked it out. Marti knew that Marta would not be able to manage all the assets. Marta had not excelled in high school or college. In fact, her daughter showed no interest in money at all, except when she went shopping. If she left things as they were, between Manuel, the administrator, and Pedro they would take everything from her daughter. Marti had to protect Marta. Manuel had overseen the business while Marti’s father had been in charge, and Marti had put up with him during the time when her husband supposedly managed things. She knew that Manuel stole from them, but he was a capable manager—something that Pedro would never be—and she’d been able to control how much he took. In fact, she’d considered it part of his salary. But now it was time to get rid of Manuel. She needed to act with professionalism, offering him a good severance package so that he’d leave happily. In the long run it was the cheapest way to let him go.