Mexican Gothic

Noemí wakes up the next morning and breakfast is brought to her on a tray. Thank goodness—now she doesn’t have to sit and eat with the whole family again. After a shower she applies her lipstick and eyeliner and then picks a fine, colorful dress to wear, hoping to defy the gloom around her. And High Place is quite gloomy: walking around the house, Noemí finds the ghostly sight of furniture covered in white sheets and draperies shut tight. Where sunlight does get in, it simply reveals how dusty everything is. She tries to find a piano, but there isn’t one. Nor is there a radio or even an old gramophone.

Noemí wanders into a large library lined with tall bookcases stuffed with leather-bound volumes. She looks around, but most of the books have been ravaged by mold. In the middle of the room lies a circular rug showing the image of a black serpent eating its own tail, with tiny flowers and vines all around it. Noemí finds a desk with an open eugenics research journal on top of it. The journal argues against the idea that the “half-breed mestizo” inherits the worst traits of their progenitors. Rather, the journal claims, the “mestizo” possess many inherently splendid attributes.

Noemí leaves the library and heads to the kitchen. She finds the room ill lit, with narrow windows and peeling paint on the walls. Two servants, an old woman and a slightly younger man, sit on a long bench cleaning mushrooms. Noemí introduces herself to them, but they stare at her mutely. A third servant walks in and nods to Noemí but does not speak to her. Noemí wonders if someone has told the servants not to speak with her, then she steps outside through the backdoor.

It’s chilly outside the house, and Noemí regrets not wearing something warmer. Francis finds her and asks if she would like to take a tour of the grounds. He takes her towards the cemetery, through an iron gate decorated with the motif of the serpent eating its tail, the same as in the library. They find the graveyard in the middle of a dense thicket of trees; it is unkempt, a realm of weeds and tall grasses threatening to swallow the place. Noemí finds the cemetery quite melancholy, and she feels sorry for the people buried here. She begins looking at the tombstones and sees that many of the people buried here died in 1888. 

Francis explains that after purchasing the mine, his great uncle Howard brought English workers here to manage it. They were successful for a few years, but then an epidemic killed most of the English workers. Those are the people buried in this cemetery. Noemí asks if his great uncle then sent for more workers from England to replace the ones who died. Francis stutters while explaining that no, after the English workers died the mine began employing Mexican workers. The pair continue walking through the cemetery, and Noemí notices a large mausoleum with the name “Doyle” carved above the doorway along with the Latin phrase “Et Verbum caro factum est.” Francis explains that a statue in front of the mausoleum is in the likeness of his great aunt, who died during the epidemic.  

The silence of the cemetery unnerves Noemí, so she starts chatting with Francis. He asks her what kind of car she drives, and she tells him: a pretty Buick convertible. Driving with the hood down makes your hair look movie-star perfect, she jokes. Noemí’s father has always said that she cares too much about her looks to take school seriously, as if a woman can’t do two things at once. Francis lowers his eyes, then tells Noemí that she’s very different from her cousin—she’s charming. Noemí knows that Catalina used to be charming, it’s only when she came to High Place that the charm seems to have left her.

The conversation turns to the Doyles. Noemí asks Francis if he envies Virgil, the heir of the family. She compares the two men: Francis is very thin and has bruises under his eyes that make her suspect a hidden ailment, while Virgil exudes strength and has bolder, more attractive features. Francis responds, saying that he doesn’t envy Virgil’s looks or position, he only envies the freedom that Virgil enjoys. Francis has never been further from High Place than El Triunfo, whereas Virgil has been allowed to travel.

Noemí shivers, so Francis gives her his sweater. They start walking towards the house. Francis tells her more about the history of High Place. After the Revolution in 1915 the mines were flooded, and operations permanently ceased; that was the same year Virgil was born. Francis is ten years younger than Virgil, but they grew up together. There were no other children in High Place, and they were both homeschooled, so they were each other’s only friends. Noemí asks why they insist on silence in High Place, and Francis tells her that Howard is very old and very sensitive to noise, and noise travels very easily in the house, despite its size.

Francis and Noemí return to the house and have lunch with Florence. The meal ends quickly—Virgil and Howard do not join them. That night while lying in bed, Noemí spots a bit of mold growing on the wallpaper. She's reminded of something she read in a book once—how microscopic fungi can act upon the dyes in paper and form arsenic gas. The most civilized Victorians killed themselves in this way. Noemí’s grandfather was a chemist, and her father’s business is the production of pigments and dyes, so she knows quite a bit about this. The wallpaper in her room is pink with yellow medallions running across it, though, not the green that killed Victorians.