“It’s odd to imagine the stars keeping someone company, as if they were ladies in waiting,” she said, unable to suppress a yawn despite her best effort.
“I certainly wouldn’t pick stars as my attendants, but then I am not mortal.”
“What attendants do you have?” she asked.
“What kind of attendants do you picture?”
Casiopea imagined skeletons and bats and owls—all manner of creatures that haunt the night, since those were the elements that embroidered the tales of the realm of Xibalba.
“Frightful ones,” she said tentatively. “Am I wrong?”
“Dead ladies, noblemen, and priests who bought passage into my kingdom centuries ago, attired in their finery.”
He smiled, as if recalling his throne room and his courtiers, and although she truly did not wish to gaze upon this world of his, she smiled too, because the memory of Xibalba brought him joy. He looked at her, then, and noticing her exhaustion—or another detail that gave him pause—he set a hand against his chest and dipped his head politely.
“I’ll let you sleep,” he said.
She nodded, placed her head against the very white pillows, not even bothering to get under the covers.
She heard his footsteps as he moved away, and then they stopped.
“Rest assured, your vanity can remain safe,” he told her.
Casiopea lifted her head and frowned. He was by the connecting door, looking down at the floor, as if in deep thought. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined the words, since he wasn’t looking at her.
“I’m sorry?”
“You were worried about the hair. You said it was the only becoming feature you possess,” Hun-Kamé said.
“It doesn’t matter. A hat—”
“It’s not the only one,” he said.
It was a simple utterance, which she might have accepted graciously had his gaze not fixed on her with an austere sincerity that made her panic and gape at him like a damn fool.
“Thank you?” she mumbled at last.
He closed the adjoining door and Casiopea stared at it for a long time, the sleep that had been courting her having vanished. She wondered what those becoming traits were. He’d said once before that she was pretty, but she hadn’t quite believed him. He was merely being kind, she told herself. But even if he was, it was both nice and odd to experience such chivalry.
They ordered room service, which Casiopea had never done before, but the hotel clerk had mentioned it when they checked in, so she’d gone downstairs to inquire how this service might be obtained. They probably thought her a country bumpkin, asking such a thing, but Casiopea had never been reluctant to learn.
There were a myriad of food options, but she opted for bread rolls and marmalade, knowing little of what one was supposed to purchase in such a place, plus hot coffee. Shortly thereafter a hotel employee knocked at her door, wheeling in a cart and depositing two dishes on the table.
Hun-Kamé and Casiopea discussed their schedule for the day, eating by the open window. Hun-Kamé wanted to go to a jewelry store, which Casiopea thought odd.
“What would you need from there?” she asked, dipping the bolillo in her coffee.
“A necklace, very likely. If we are to see Xtabay tonight we cannot head there empty-handed.”
“I thought gods did not make any offerings.”
“It’s not an offering, it’s a gesture of goodwill. Besides, I won’t be carrying it, you will,” he said airily.
Casiopea pointed at him with the butter knife. “You consider me your maid.”
“My ally, dear lady,” he replied, sipping his coffee slowly, as if he was still reluctant to taste earthly dishes.
She frowned, picking at the center of the bolillo, extracting the soft bread from the harder shell. She didn’t have the luxury of eating the soft part of the bolillo back home, having to munch whatever was available under the watchful eye of her mother. Now she could do as she pleased, and she rolled bits of soft bread, tossing them into her mouth.
“You could spin a few jewels out of rocks,” she said.
“I can’t do that.”
“I’ve seen you turn stones into coins,” she reminded him.
“I cannot alter the nature of an object. It is merely a play of light and shadow, an illusion.”
“Will the illusion wear off?”
“Illusions always wear off.”
They asked the concierge about jewelry shops. There were suitable shops all down Madero—stubborn capitalinos still referred to it as Plateros, unwilling to accept the name change that honored a murdered president—but he emphasized La Esmeralda, which had been the darling of the Porfirian aristocracy. La Esmeralda was looted in 1914 by Carranza’s troops, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. It had been renovated seven years before, grew more splendorous, and advertised itself as a place for “art objects and timepieces,” selling all sorts of wildly expensive baubles.
The store was grand, but like many newer buildings in Mexico it was also a mishmash of styles, French rococo mixing with neoclassic, a little vulgar if one looked at it closely. Most capitalinos did not realize that the architectonic pretensions of the building were more nouveau riche than Art Nouveau, and, had this been explained to them, they would have denied the building had any deficiencies.
The store’s name was boldly emblazoned across the front, a clock marking the hour above it. Before its iron skeleton was erected a more modest three-story building had stood there, made of red tezontle, best suited for the soft Mexico City soil that had been, after all, a city of canals before the Spaniards filled up its waterways. But then Hauser and Zivy had that old house smashed and established the Esmeralda in its place, a store in which the distinguished consumer could order Baccarat crystal and elaborate music boxes. Inside, the building was all marble, glass, and dark wood, gleaming crystal and profuse decorations.
Hun-Kamé knew what he wanted, focusing on gold necklaces. Casiopea, meanwhile, looked at a heavy silver bracelet with black enamel triangles, of the “Aztec” style, which was much in vogue and meant to attract the eye of tourists with its faux pre-Hispanic motifs. It was a new concoction, of the kind that abound in a Mexico happy to invent traditions for mass consumption, eager to forge an identity after the fires of the revolution—but it was pretty.
“You should try it on,” said the saleswoman, smelling a commission.
“I couldn’t,” Casiopea said.
“I’m sure your husband will think it pretty.”