The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini Read Online Free PDF Page B

daughter and it was my own daughter who told me the story. Why should I lie to you?”
    He asked the question so forcefully that I retreated a little. “I don’t mean to say you’re lying, but even if your story is true, why are you so certain the girl in the picture is Pacheco’s daughter? You said you saw her a number of years ago. Perhaps it’s someone else, some third woman.”
    â€œAnd I suppose you know who it is,” said Malgiolio.
    His tone irritated me. “Perhaps I do,” I said. Walking to the liquor cabinet, I poured myself more mineral water. Then I looked again at the photograph. There was a yielding quality to the face, as if she were willing to let herself be taken but only by the right man. Truly, she was offering herself, offering and refusing at the same time. Returning the picture to the mantel, I walked toward the window. I had no wish for Malgiolio to laugh at me as he had laughed at Dalakis. Why should I tell my story when there was no hope of communication?
    â€œDon’t let Malgiolio upset you,” said Dalakis, standing up, “you know how he is.”
    Yes, I thought, he’s the man who squandered a third of a million in thirteen months. I looked out at the street. There was no one in sight. Over the buildings to my left a huge column of smoke rose up in the shape of a dog’s head. The windows were the sort that had to be cranked open. I opened one, then sat down on the red cushion. Again there were gunshots and sirens, but they seemed far away. Behind me Dalakis and Malgiolio were quarreling about their respective stories.
    The story I knew about the woman in the picture was quite different. I’d heard it from a reporter at the paper who had pointed her out to me in a restaurant several years before. Her name was Andrea Morales and her husband was an engineer for a highway construction company. Her beauty was well known and before her marriage she had been an actress and appeared in a couple of television plays.
    She had met Pacheco at a dinner party. She and her husband had no children and my friend suggested she was bored and had no idea what to do with herself. Of course Pacheco wanted her. He called her, he wrote to her, and eventually they had an affair that went on for some months. Then her husband learned about it. He was deeply in love with his wife. Distraught and miserable, he took a bottle of sleeping pills. She found him on the kitchen floor after she came back from being with Pacheco. He was barely alive. She got him to the hospital and for a week he remained in a coma.
    The husband recovered, but not completely. Physically he seemed perfect, but he had some nervous disorder. His wife took care of him. Even so, he no longer trusted her or found pleasure in her company. He was constantly making scenes in public, even bursting into tears. The woman decided to remain with him no matter what, feeling she was responsible for his condition and that perhaps he would improve. But, according to my friend, he showed no signs of improving and the two of them, man and wife, remained locked in this suspicious and guilt-ridden relationship without pleasure or love.
    Malgiolio and Dalakis continued to argue. It occurred to me that even if we were wrong about the photograph, the stories themselves were probably true. And of course there were other stories about Pacheco and women, there were hundreds of stories. As I walked back across the library, I was struck by the idea that the stories probably said more about the men who had told them than about the photograph or even Pacheco— Dalakis’s story was romantic and basically kind, Malgiolio’s showed envy and lasciviousness. And my own, what did my story tell? And who, if anyone, was right?
    â€”
    But then at last Pacheco arrived. There was a noise on the other side of the door. Then it opened and he hurried into the room, pulling on a dark gray suitcoat. Pacheco’s expression