Dr. Brinkley's Tower by Robert Hough Page A

another war even a remote possibility. People in town felt safer with the tower now hovering above them. He could see it in their faces, in the way they walked, in the ease with which they now smiled.
    Lost to feelings of immense contentment, the molinero heard a shuffling
clip-clop.
He looked over, and there was Miguel Orozco limping towards him. Again the molinero grinned. It was just after one in the afternoon, and it was clear that the mayor was already knocking off for the day.
    â€” Qué onda, Roberto?
    â€” No mucho, Miguel.
    â€” Can I join you?
    â€” Claro, said the molinero. — Claro que sí.
    â€” Smoke?
    â€” Sí. Gracias.
    The two men lit cigarillos and gazed up at the tower, which considerately blocked the sun from their eyes. They sat puffing, the atmosphere so heavy and still that the smoke hung in the air like dense blue webs. As the heat of the day climbed, both men cultivated a thin film of perspiration ontheir brows, on their upper lips, and in the creases of their necks.
    â€” Do you know Laura Velasquez? asked the molinero.
    â€” Of course.
    â€” She’s cleaning my house.
    â€” She’s an angel. She really is.
    â€” Ay sí, said the molinero. — But you know what they say about angels. They always have at least a little devil lurking deep inside.
    Both men chuckled at the molinero’s witticism. Later, when they had finished smoking, they both rose to their feet, a laborious production given the molinero’s age and the mayor’s bad foot, the latter acquired during one of the more disturbed phases of the revolution. Predictably, the mayor limped off to the cantina. The molinero, meanwhile, shuffled back to his home. Inside, he found Laura packing up.
    â€” Do you like what I’ve done? she asked.
    He looked around his little cottage. She had collected all the laundry, dirty dishes, and old newspapers, and then swept the space she’d created. The room looked bigger, it smelled of flowers, and the sun coming in through his window wasn’t thick with dust motes. It was no longer, he realized with a start, the home of an old man.
    â€” Sí, mucho. Gracias.
    â€” I’ll return tomorrow. I didn’t have time for the kitchen.
    â€” No, por favor, you don’t have to.
    â€” I know that, Señor Pántelas.
    Laura Velasquez shyly grinned.
    â€” But I want to.

    The next day, as promised, Laura again came with her cleaning utensils and her bashful, tight-lipped grin. This time, however, the molinero had awoken earlier, giving himself time to bathe and shave his grizzled features, his eyes sufficiently dim that he failed to notice the halo of fine cuts and gouges he’d distributed over his jawline. When he opened the door and presented himself, Laura smiled so freely that he saw, for just a moment, the tips of her broken, misshapen teeth.
    As the molinero sat in the plaza, smoking once again with Miguel Orozco, Laura finished the job she had started the day before, chiselling away at years of grease and smoke and the resin produced by cooking over smouldering green branches. When the molinero returned, he stood gaping, his eyes welling with the sort of tears caused by fond memories: he was remembering his own mother, in this very kitchen, cooking stews made from vaca tail and nopales. As he looked around, he had the hopeful thought that maybe, just maybe, this kitchen might play host to the creation of pleasing memories once more.
    She was at his door at eleven o’clock the very next day, wearing the same skirt and white cotton shirt that, the molinero was starting to notice, had a tendency to tighten against her body whenever she reached for something, revealing a feminine litheness that the old man had not previously associated with Laura Velasquez. This time she was carrying a large, round wicker basket. After nodding hello and refusing an offer of coffee, she headed towards the bureau in the corner, where she had