The Director calls

The Director called the next morning when Lethe was still in bed. The Senora was slicing vegetables in the kitchen, full of anxious vigor. “Si . . . si . . . un momento.”

Lethe crawled out of bed and came into the kitchen. He looked like a ball of melted wax; expression hadn’t seeped into his face yet. He took the phone from the Senora’s hand and pressed his ear against the garlic-smelling receiver. The Director’s gruff, commanding voice greeted him: “Good morning, Lethe.”

“Good morning, Director.”

“Sleeping in again?”

“I had a late night last night. Hanging out with the Spaniards, you know.”

“The Spanish don’t take partying lightly, do they?”

“No sir, not at all. But you’ll be glad to know that I’ve mastered the Spanish language.”

“Is that true?”

“I’m perfectly fluent thanks to my native friends.”

The sparkling conversation was beginning to wake Lethe up. The Senora handed him a glass of orange juice.

Lethe continued, “It’s because I left the Institute, I know it is.”

“Of course, your wise decision to leave the Institute advanced your learning. School is backwards, after all. Why should anyone have to attend class?”

Lethe hesitated, unable to translate the Director’s last couple sentences. “Did you hear from my new Senora?”

The Director’s mustache scratched against the receiver. With a muffled sigh, he said, “Okay then. That’s why I’m calling. Senora Raquel de la Tristeza cannot be your senora.”

“What? Why not?”

“She says it’s too late in the year for her to take you in.”

“But I thought you said you were going to help me find a senora?”

“I said I would try . . .”

“You said she owed you a favor–”

“Yes, but that was many years ago and now it seems like she’s forgotten.”

The Senora’s kitchen suddenly became hot. The bubbling pots on the stove produced an unbearable, seething humidity; and the Senora’s flighty housekeeper, Catalin, kept rushing through the center of the room with her thousand and one tasks.

“I’m sorry Lethe, I tried.”

Lethe was sweating; he had to take a shower.

“Don’t forget what we talked about.”

“I’ve already forgotten.”

“You have to leave the Senora’s apartment by tomorrow.”

After hanging up the phone, Lethe ran into his bedroom. The tiny, besmirched room with the wrought-iron balcony and the stupid poster of the clown on the wall was his. The room felt more his own than the sanitized, anonymous bedroom he’d grown up in.

He fell down to his knees and began crying. He never cried, not even when he was trying to kill himself. It was all because of his new Senora. She inspired these tears in him, a woman he would never meet, a woman he would never know. He would never know if she looked the way he imagined her to look, with nut-brown skin, a buxom chest and flowing black hair that covered her shoulders and back. The visions came to a halt before him. She was supposed to be young and beautiful. She was supposed to coddle him and have sex with him. She was supposed to cook for him. Now what was he going to do?

He could call Ricky or Alejandro and ask if he could sleep over at one of their apartments. But that might jeopardize his friendship with them. He didn’t want to ask too many favors.

Standing on his balcony, he lit a cigarette and stared down into the alleyway where the old men sat in the cool shadows protected from the heat. This was the last time he would see those old men lingering there, and it was also the last time he would look across the street to the apartment building with colorful bricks that faced his own. The flower-filled patios, the uniformed maids working in the windows, the junior piano player; he would miss life here.

Oh, goddamnit, it was good to be leaving this place. He loved the little ledge but he also despised himself for sucking up the Senora’s last remaining spirit with his needy, greedy habits. Who was he kidding? The old Senora was no more his mother than the new Senora was his sex-goddess. He got carried away with his fantasies and now all he wanted was a room of his own where he could conduct his business of reading and writing, and maybe socializing on the weekends, perhaps having visitors during the week days, but only on occasion. He remembered Veronica from the International Institute and then searched for her number. It was hiding somewhere among the school books he never opened.

His thoughts were racing as he puffed his cigarette to the very end. It was already noon. He had to look for a place to live. The Senora once told him about the pensiones in el Plaza del Sol, a district of shops, restaurants, movie theaters, hotels and apartments for rent. Quickly, he rushed to the bathroom and drenched his face in hot water–but he did not take another shower. There was no time. He had to find a place to live. He was being kicked out of the Senora’s apartment by tomorrow.