American Dreams by Eduardo Gonzalez Viana

American Dreams
Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

English Translation by Heather Moore Cantarero
Arte Pblico Press Houston, Texas
This volume is made possible through the City of Houston through The Cultural Arts Council of Houston, Harris County. Recovering the past, creating the future Arte Pblico Press University of Houston 452 Cullen Performance Hall Houston, Texas 77204-2004 Cover design by Adelaida Mendoza. Cover art by Malaquas Montoya, La Crusada, (1993). Gonzlez Viaa, Eduardo. [Sueos de Amrica. English] American Dreams / original Spanish by Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa; English translation by Heather Moore Cantarero. p. cm. ISBN-10: 1-55885-447-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-1-55885-447-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Cantarero, Heather Moore. III. Title. PQ8498.17.O55S8413 2005 863.64dc22 2004062329 CIP The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. 2005 by Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa Imprinted in the United States of America
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Contents
Porfirios Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontier Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Florcitas Confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Death Confesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hello, this Is Susan on Hot Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Claudia in the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Duration of Eternity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This Letter Will Be Answered in Heaven. . . . . . . . . . . Shadows and Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 14 48 53 58 67 73 80 91
Final Page in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 The Invention of Paris. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Clouds and People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Tango. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 American Dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Seven Nights in California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 St. Barbara Sails toward Miami . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 You Were in San Diego. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Gods Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 This Is Your Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
For Sarita Colonia, the travelers refuge, and Mara del Pilar, my sister: they know why.
Porfirios Book
very time we think about Porfirio, we dont know what to think. Some say he entered the United States on the beach; others are sure he came over the hills, like most of us; and then there are those who would see him flying. They see him float over the hills of Tijuana. They see him dodge the radar posts and escape the infrared lights. They see him levitate, weightless, above the gringos helicopters. They see him alighting at the entrance to San Diego just like angels alight, and that is how they see him because Porfirio is small, furry, softa donkey inside and outand though he be every bit a donkey, he is light and airy, so light and airy that when he trots he appears to steady himself, as if he were anchoring himself to the ground, as if he feared the wind would carry him away, and he always goes, he goesthe wind always carries him away. One of the Espino familys neighbors informs us that Porfirio was taken across the border during a sand storm one day when the wind blew so forcefully that several Mexican hills crossed over without showing their papers, and an eloping couple with no place to hide was lost in the abundant skies of California. But that cant be true because not even God can hide Porfirios ears when Porfirio gets nervous, or turns stubborn as a mule, or dumb as an ass, and plows on toward the United States in the middle of a storminvisible, transparent, incorporeal, silent, philosophical, but always an assand before
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him go his enormous, soft, fugitivedonkey ears. Or maybe the Espinos crossed at night during an eclipse. The moon must have bounced from one side of the sky to the other until it finally settled into a reddish hole, and thats when they seized the chance to cross. The mustaches of the customs officials were gilded by the eclipse, as well as their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, and so, if they saw Porfirios ears go by, they saw them as if they were golden, as if they were flying, and the officials must have taken them for butterflies. In the end, none of this matters. Whats important is knowing how the Espinos could think of entering this country with a donkey in tow when we all know how cumbersome the poverty and death we bring from the other side are. The truth is we all wish we could have brought the donkey, the house, the town clock, the pub, and our friends, but coming to this country is like dying, and all you can take with you, besides your hopes and sorrows, are the clothes on your back. Maybe it was because he was all the Espinos had, besides the boy Manuel, who must have been about five years old and wouldnt have wanted to part with the donkey. Perhaps they felt, or knew, that without an animal, the human family isnt good or complete, as God says in the Bible when he talks about a certain Mr. Noah who blew a path through the storm, carrying with himin addition to his wife and daughtershis turkeys, ducks, pigs, rams, dreams, tiger, lion, butterfly, and an elephant from the town. Maybe its like some say, that animals give advice to people, without them realizing it. In any case, in this story there is always a yellow, incandescent afternoon and, walking before this color, the silhouettes of a man, a woman, a boy, and Porfirio, about to enter the United States. And that is why they kept Porfirio with them through the good and the bad, the good times and the bad times in San Diego and Los Angeles, Paso Robles and San Jose, San Francisco and Sacramento, Independence and Salemand in all of
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these places you would have to assume that the donkey, like his owners, lived in hiding, illegal, undocumented. Of course, during this whole time the father and mother would have been working from before sunrise, he in logging, she in a cannery, until night, when a lazy moon would swallow them, make them invisible. We all must make ourselves invisible when the Migra comes to call, but its difficult to imagine how the Espinos could make Porfirio invisible, when we all know a donkeys flesh is not transparent, and even if it were, you must calculate the density of fear and how intensely the eyes of sad men and frightened animals glow in the night, giving them away. You have to ask yourself what an invisible family does to get by in the United States and what role the donkey has in this whole story, and when we think about that, it occurs to us that a donkey is useful because he can take care of a boy while his parents work. Then comes the question of how to hide a donkey in a country where computers know everything you are doing with your life, but when we think about that, we remember that God gave the Espinos the biggest house He could find for them in the area. They came across it on the edge of the Willamette River, on the bank where the wild geese rest every year, and the house was so old and so empty, it looked like it had been abandoned since the days of the Flood, and they took it, because an immigration lawyer told them that in Oregon it is legal to take possession of abandoned houses. Mario Jos and Mara del Pilar took the room with the west-facing window, and they gave the boy the room with the east-facing window. As for Porfirio, even though he would spend the daylight hours eating grass, he would sleep, philosophize, and play with Manuelito in an annex room which, in its better days, might have been a library because it was filled with almanacs and books about raising chickens. No one would look for him therenot the Migra, not
the municipal authoritiesbecause no one, not even in the land of gringos, has ever heard of donkey librarians. We must assume that later, when the Espinos got their green cards, Porfiriowho, instead of being an animal in hiding, had become a pet, as they call household animals here also got one. That happened about two years ago, when illegal immigrants were given amnesty, and through a miracle of the Virginso Mario saidthe law covered them also, maybe because the Virgin was tired of having only awful things happen to them. And the good luck came their way just when Manuel was passing up the age to start learning to read and write; in other words, he was saved from being illiterate his whole life, which has been happening to children born in California who, because of their bad luck, are the sons and daughters of wetbacks. And Im sure Manuelito liked school so much, he returned home eager to teach his donkey friend how to read, which isnt odd, considering that little girls feed their dollsalthough it is dangerous for animals to learn, and that seems to be what happened. But the situation isnt that strange if you also keep in mind that donkeys cant write because they dont have hands nor can they speak because they bray, but theres no law against them reading. Moreover, no one is proclaiming that the donkey really learned, but thats what Manuelito said, and his parents pretended to believe him and took it for an innocent game. And thats why, every day when he got home, the boy would go to Porfirios room, open his book to the lesson the teacher had taught him, and put together words, sentences, and obsessions, and he would repeat that this word meant elephant, and you wont forget it because the letter h is tall and hunchbacked, just exactly like elephants in the jungle in the afternoon, and the next one is world because the letter o is deep and moonstruck, and this word is clouds because its dark and looks like its
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always going away, and youre not going to forget the word sea because s looks like the waves that come and the waves that go, and memory, which looks like the sea and Mara who longed to see the sea . . . and turning the page, these words taught him how to read, and led along the river of lonely love, where there above the seaI wait for you alone, along the sea, Mara. Mam loves Manuelito. The next day Manuelito taught him that moon is a stretched out word that can be read and thought, but not spoken very often, and tomorrow Ill teach you that this is the number two, because Ive always wished there were two moons in the sky and two bells in the church, and if you look closely, elephants are flying through the clouds and the house is transformed into a boat, and lovers lose their memories and get lost on the moon . . . and Manuelito loves his mama, and smoke floods the pages well read tomorrow. Lets agree that donkeys dont speak or write, but theres no reason why reading couldnt be one of their talents, like those animals that ride motorcycles and those others that fetch the newspaper, but to the Espinos it seemed impossible, and they pretended to believe Manuelito when he talked to them about his pupils progress. And to play along with the boys game, one day they went and scolded Porfirio for not applying himself to his lessons as he should, and they threatened to put donkey ears on him if it happened again, and they left the library smiling and conspiratorial. And they only felt a little surprised and just a bit uncomfortable when, the following week, their pet went straight to the neighbors house to fetch the newspaper and stood looking at it a good half hour as if he were reading it. With all of this, we must suppose that Porfirio didnt share his young teachers hopes either, but he didnt tell him, because donkeys dont talk and because its not polite for an ass to deceive a little boy, and so he assumed the stance of someone
who is listening to the lesson without making comments, and he learned the serious look of those who either dont understand anything or are trying to keep from laughing. If he did manage to learn, he must have been surprised with himself upon discovering that letters were really things, and that they didnt just represent things, and that Mara returned to the sea, and boats sailed to the moon defenseless. But he looked at the book the boy had left by his feed, and he couldnt believe words spoke and wanted to speak with him to tell him that boats go north and south, east and west. He couldnt believe it, until he found the word house and, without his teacher being there, identified it with the Espinos house so well-kept and tastefully decorated by Mrs. Espinoand then the word boy, which of course was identical to Manuelito; and finally he found, observed, sniffed the words good-bye, hills, and borders, and it occurred to him that they must be near other words like origin, land, sorrow, nostalgia, love, and exposure. But there was also that odd word horizonlong, curved, distantand it seemed to him it was identical to the blue line visible over there where the sky started, at the end of Salem. And finally he discovered that feed was a delicious word. An illustration showed him the green delicacy he received every morning and that he savored again in the meadow after playing with Manuelito. Pasture, hay, grass, and feed were words that varied from green to yellow but never ceased being delicious and fundamental. Perhaps he told himself that feed is the most pleasant word in the language, and in that moment, Porfirio opened wide his eyes, his enormous ears stood on end, and he was able to form his first complete sentence, or maybe he only thought it, but this was the moment when he told himself, I feed . . . I think . . . therefore I am. Some people are of the opinion that Manuelito left him messages like, Today your assignment is to read from page
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15 to 18 or When I get home from school, remind me to mow the lawn and water the plants, and you would suppose that when Mario Espino read those messages he told his wife, Maybe it would be best to get rid of the donkey, or put him to sleep. Hes filling the boys head with strange notions. It has come to be said, finally, that Manuelito left homework for him, similar to his own, just adapted to the quadruped family, and thats why, when he taught him the decimal system, Porfirio had to tap the floor as many times as equaled the symbol the boy wrote on a small chalkboard. With the left hoof he got up to five, and two taps with the right hoof brought the total to seven. That much is believable; whats unacceptable is to suppose that he went so far as to teach him fractions, and that, to represent them, Porfirio had to pretend his right leg was lame. Who can make heads or tails of that? I cant make heads or tails of it, the father protested when he discovered that his son and the donkey exchanged messages, and that Manuelito left notes that said Today, read from page 5 through 10, or You can take a nap, but only after you do your homework. And Mario discovered that, sure enough, that ass was sleeping, because there, outside, in the pasture, under the tallest fir tree, standing very noble and dignified, the animal had his eyes closed, and two little birds flitted in circles around his head, the clearest sign that he was dreaming. I cant make heads or tails of it, Mario reiterated, and he got very angry, but not because the animal might have learned to read, but because he might be doing Manuelitos homework for him, and a father who cares for his childs spiritual health can not that, nor should he. Do you hear what youre saying?! Calm down, Mario! Our son is a real gentleman, and he would never permit Porfirio to do his homework for him, no matter how good of friends they are. Besides, its not at all strange that the donkey spends hours in front of a book moving the pages, like you say it looks like
he does, because those books with their color pictures are remarkably appealing, and if they had taught us that way, we wouldnt be living all topsy-turvy here in this country. Of course, these are only conjectures. If Porfirio learned to read, he didnt tell anybody, especially not his teacher, as he didnt want to make him feel guilty. Obliging and wise as only donkeys can be, maybe he preferred to keep quiet, to not confess to Manuelito that, thanks to him, hed now received the gift of wisdom, and wisdom is almost always sad, because what happens when a donkey, or anyone, reads words like loneliness and death for the first time? What do you think a donkey does? What would you do? I believe it was around then that Porfirio was seen alone and golden, wandering through the fields, trotting like horses do, and Im sure the horses of the dead glided along the horizon. I think thats when he started to look different from the others of his species. It must have been during this time when the early-morning roosters confused him for either a phantom or a demonIm not sure whichand started crowing as if it were the end of the world. I believe this was the moment when Porfirio turned to smoke. And that is just what were talking about. But were not talking just about that, but also about the expression on Manuelitos face when he woke up very early Saturday and didnt find his friend anywhere in the house, or the expression on Porfirios face as he climbed some mountain in the Cascade Range and discovered how immense and strange the universe was and how much he was going to miss the Espinos in this world to which he had fled, this world of wild burros and horses. This is all supposing he escaped, although the first thing we all thought was that Mario had gotten rid of him, sold him to a fast food restaurant, and, to cover it up, the said gentleman took the day off work to go with Manuelito in search of the
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runaway. They searched for him in all the forests in the county; they combed Marys Peak, the tallest hill in the area, and they went all the way to the mouth of the Willamette River, thinking maybe he had fallen in by accident, and perhaps his soul was now negotiating the paths of death. By the way, do donkeys have souls? What do you think? Because as it turns out, that was one of the questions posed on Oregons Hispanic radio station, La Campeona, when Mario advertised a reward for whoever found Porfirio. It seems to me that was when Porfirio started showing up here and there, with the same timing and in the same way that saints do. I remember Efran Daz Horna phoned the radio station to let us know hed seen the animal scaling the side of Mount Angel, and hed tried calling out to him, but the animal followed his own path, very smug and sure, as if he knew exactly where he was goinginland, toward the most remote eastern realms. But a woman with a painful voice, who refused to give her name, had seen him that same hour at the opposite point, on the ocean, and it seemed to me he was sad, and he walked slowly, but surely, and he was about to cross the horizon of the bay near Lincoln City, and I remember he was a small, black horse, very black . . . Then the announcer interrupted to clarify that it wasnt a horse that had gotten lost, but a donkey with a white coat small, furry, soft, but a donkey inside and outand the woman asked that first she be allowed to say hello to all of her friends from Michoacn, Mexico, and afterward she explained that theres no difference between a horse and a donkey on those paths where I saw him, because, as you will know, up there in heaven size is not precisely what matters. Thats what made me want to call the station to ask if donkeys also go to heaven, and half an hour later an Evangelical pastor responded, taking me to task for being ignorant, but he was only insinuating this when he asked me where I imagined
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the little donkey from Palm Sunday could be, and what about that other one who accompanied the Holy Family on their flight to Egypt? What spared me from making a fool of myself was the call from a certain Martn Rodrguez, who first off asked the announcer to play him one of La Vengadoras songs and afterward told us hed been working in the grass seed harvest when he saw a small donkey stopped at an intersection who looked like he was reading the road signs and the names of the various cities before deciding which road to take. It got worse when Elqui Burgos, born in that very same Michoacn, as he said, called to tell us he had seen the same animal, but hed been standing in front of a herd of his fellow donkeys; and he assured us the donkey brayed and his friends repeated, mah, may, mee, moh, moo and then bah, bay, bee, boh, boo as if they were in front of a conductor or music teacher. Thats when a pompous professor from the university intervened to beg the distinguished Hispanic audience to show some signs of discernment, because donkeys could never learn to read or write, and he reminded us that we live in a modern country and not in some sorry rural village like the one you people left, but when he tried to continue his longwinded speech, the announcer interrupted to play a corrido by Los Errantes de Jalisco in which the singers narrate how a bottomless, hopeless love has compelled them to wander the world and lose themselves in strange lands and among the yellow dunes of the desert, a desert like the one Porfirio was surely crossing at that moment, his eyes closed, longing to forget everything he had learned. And thats the same way the boy Manuelito went to school, with his eyes closed, going over the words and sentences and letters, and perhaps saying them backwards, as if he were erasing them, or as if he had suddenly learned the truth that knowledge and pain are one and the same. To be human is to know
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you are going to die and to endure knowing, and through this, we differentiate ourselves from animals. And the announcer didnt say this; I say it because Im convinced of what Im saying, and I will never stop telling this story, or stop believing it, even though I dont agree with Manuelito, and I believe if you teach animals to read, youll make them unhappy when they see that death exists and they learn that they dont even belong to the kingdom of men. Plenty of people have said that Porfirio left Salem flying, and that he flew toward the deserts of Utah to gather with a herd of wild burros that lives in that far-off place. I believe it was one of those talk radio psychics who said that, and he also expressed the opinion that the animal had learned in books that its always better to live with your own kind, or something like that, as if you needed to read to comprehend that we miss our people and that in this strange country we just end up getting turned on our heads, but as my buddy Eleodoro says, we are always happy, troubles and all. Flying is like walking, but without moving, although, in my opinion, at that time Porfirio was not flying over the mountains nor sinking below the horizon off Oregons coast; rather, the poor beast was retracing the steps that had taken him to the desertor wherever it was they had taken himreturning to his house in Salem, and he had to do it limping, avoiding the bridges, skirting the freeways, and evaporating in heavily populated areas, because the plain truth is the young men from the gang Young Blessed had stuck him in a pick-up truck with the intention of selling him for a good price in California, where they say theres a good market for dancing rabbits, bilingual parrots, and dogs that fetch the paper, and probably to escape his captors, the donkey jumped on the way to Ashland and maimed himself as he hit the freeway, but in that condition he continued trotting toward his masters home. How long does it take to get from Ashland to Salem? You
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will say less than a day, but have you asked yourself how long it would take trotting? As I see it, he had already made it to Independencethat is, he was just a few hours from home when the towns sheriff arrested him because he didnt have papers and put him in jail until his owner showed up, and he must have been there at least a week, desperate and hopeless, while Mara del Pilar Espino washed away the color of death that had infused the face of the boy Manuelito, and she mumbled that after all, that donkey was an inveterate ingrate who had rejected a warm home, a loving family, and a promising future, not to mention the friendship of Manuelito, who hadnt been able to go to school in days. When they took him to school, he would fall asleep, and it was as if a huge yellow moon had lodged itself in his soul and as if he really had begun to erase from his heart all the letters and words he had been learning. Thats how it must have been because just as we were listening to Race Hour, which is the best program on the radio, an inmate phoned in to let the community know that the other night a small, nervous, stubborn donkey, who was a bit lame and looked like a doctor, had slept in the Hispanics block. We tried to call in then to clarify who this doctor was, but the line was busy, and the announcer interrupted our incarcerated friend. Wait a second, buddy. Tell me where youre calling from. You said from the jail, but you havent said which one. But anyway, whats reception like for La Campeona in that godforsaken place? And which song do you want to hear? Well, apparently we can hear La Campeona very well among the brothers here on the inside, but itd be great if youd play me a corrido by Los Ilegales de Guanajuato, the one that starts out Im in the slammer, doing time . . . Ill get that one for you within the hour, my friend, and who do you want to say, Hola to?
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His greetings went out to all the women of Guadalajara, and to everyone from Cholula, and it was only when he pronounced that word that Mario Espinos call went through and he could ask which jail he was calling from, but our incarcerated friend had already hung up, or perhaps his cell phone battery had died. When you live on the run, nothing stops you. You can come face to face with Death along the way or be struck by a purple lightning bolt and keep walking as if you hadnt noticed. Thats what theyve told us, and thats what I know, and thats why I imagine Porfirio managed to escape even from jail, and the tricks he had learned when the Espinos entered this country in addition to the time they spent running from the Migra served him well, and based on that, I think he escaped at night and in a few hours covered the remaining distance to his familys home. In dark times the eyes learn to see, and then it is easier to meet with your own shadow, and that must be why the moon came in through the Espinos window while the donkey walked toward the front door one Saturday night, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadnt read the little sign that requested visitors to remove their shoes before entering, or the one that entreated them to say who they were, not to mention the one the boy Manuelito had put up that said Welcome Home Porfirio. There are varying opinions about this ending, and there are even those who dare say nothing good happened, but the heavens opened and the donkey Porifirio, killed during these adventures, greeted them from up above; and others think that when he came back, he had finished forgetting what he inevitably needed to forget, and thats why, although he was lame, he walked forward gladly, without reading the signs, and no one ever knew if he had been in life or in death. And that is why every time we think about Porfirio we dont know what to think.
Frontier Woman
. . . I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life. Deuteronomy 30:19
hey walk and walk. Theyve been walking since last night, but they still havent reached the summit. Walking the way they do, they could be struck by lightning and just keep walking, unfazed. The rest of their group has been on the other side for hours already, but the man and woman progress haltingly; sometimes they find themselves stuck in the sand, unable to take one more step forward, and dawn is about to break over the southern border of the United States. I cant go on, he says. Come on, were almost there. Just a little bit more. But I cant pull my leg out. This stuffs like quicksand. You know its just a little hill. The last little hill of Mexico. Remember last night? The first one to make it over the top was the pregnant lady. After her, everyone else made it over, even the children. Remember? Remember when we set out? Come on. We cant turn back now. You told me you were going to behave. But you know I cant. I cant go on. Rest a bit, and then well keep going. But I really cant pull my leg out of this hole its stuck in. This hill is devouring me.
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Let me pull you out, and once youre free youll lie down on my shawl and sleep for a while until youve got some strength back . . . Above, the morning stars wink away while a yellow moon floats over and vanishes, as if forever, and finally, when the sun springs up over Mexicos last mountain, its light reveals the pair at the summit. Now its possible to see that the woman elderly, maybe close to eighty, spare but spryhas the man, whos apparently sick, by the arm, and shes dragging him toward the other side of the rise, the side where theyll find the United States of America. Youll see when we get there, youre going to feel fine. Youre going to get all better. Youll be a new man. He seems to revive and takes a few steps with more resolve. He notices theyve crossed the top, and now theyre descending the other side of the mountain of sand. Now he leaps and runs, bounding down like a little boy. The wind catches the white bandage on his forehead, and it tries to fly away, but he holds it down and continues his giddy descent. A moment later he halts, suddenly transfixed, as if he were witnessing an angel on the horizon sounding a trumpet. When the lady reaches the man and takes him by the arm, he droops, deflated. Dont hold me up anymore, Mam. I dont think its necessary now, he says, pointing to a speck on the horizon. There below they can barely make out a group of people, but they cant tell yet who they are. They could just as well be U.S. agents as the coyotes they paid to help them cross the border. In Guatemala, Manuel Doroteo Silveira Martnez had just turned fifty when he suffered the first of his unbearable headaches. It lasted a day. He thought it was a perseguidora and made up his mind to never drink again like he had on his birthday. The second one surprised him in the office where he worked as an accountant, and this time they took him to the
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hospital in an ambulance. Once the emergency had passed, the doctor who saw him convinced him to stay in the hospital so they could perform a complete physical examination. Widowed and childless, immensely alone in the universe, Doroteo had to let his mother know he was going to be hospitalized. If there had been any way to keep the bad news from her, he would have, but he had to tell her; otherwise, she would notice his absence: it was his custom to visit her each evening on the other side of Guatemala City, where she lived with a married granddaughter, so her sons sudden absence would have terrified her. That is why Doa Asuncin Martnez de Silveira went to him in the hospital. She met the doctor, made friends with him and the nurses, and found outthrough a series of diagnostic tests whose results the doctor revealed to herwhat the patient would never know: A brain tumor . . . We dont know what kind of tumor . . . We would have to operate, but we dont know what would happen. And that is also why Doa Asuncin left the family she lived with and went to care for her son. Poor boy. I cant leave him alone. He needs me, she said, and maybe she added that, given the circumstances, she could no longer allow herself the luxury of growing old. Please understand. Im going to have to leave you to take care of Doroteo. The grandchildren didnt want to let her go, but they couldnt stop her when they saw her head out ready to fight for her sons life, forgetting her old age, dressed all in white, erect and silent, walking the way souls walk. To die and to be dying is not the same thing. Doroteo never knew who had said that because the phrase slipped into his ear from the corridors of the hospital. Later he thought it was a completely pointless saying. In the end, he told himself it wasnt meant for him anyway, because he hadnt considered yet that he could die. In reality, he couldnt have known the
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true nature of his illness, because in Latin America a terminal diagnosis isnt usually disclosed to the patient, but to an authorized family member. At some point, someone told him it was probably a benign tumor, but they didnt tell him anything else. At the end of two years and after grueling radiation therapy, the doctor knew nothing more could be done, and Doroteos time was up. You can leave the hospital now. Youll feel better out there, he told Doroteo. Now you can do whatever you want with your life, he added, but he didnt tell him there was little of it left. He did tell Doa Asuncin, I give him three or four weeks, and, maybe, during that time, hell feel perfectly fine, as if he were healthy, because thats how the illness is, and thats how Death is. Sometimes, she inspires them to die slowly, patiently. She listened to him, but she didnt believe him, because night after night, while she kept watch over Doroteos dreams, shed had time to read, in the hospital corridors, a few popular magazines that told of astounding cures. In the end, Readers Digest Selections and her own decision to believe in life convinced Doa Asuncin that the only way to save her son was to take him to the United States. When the patient left the hospital, there glowed within him that air of good health Death tends to give her next guests, so theyll live happily in the time left to them. The sickness seemed to have fled, and only his complete baldness, fruit of the radiation therapy, could give away his true state. Doroteo felt full of life and ready to banter. Im really quite handsome. Must be because Im going to die, he said, joking, although it didnt come out sounding like a joke; it sounded more like fear, and suddenly he knew if he didnt do something, hed end up in bed again. But he didnt have time to get depressed because Doa Asuncin Martnez de Silveira had already planned everything they must do from that
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moment on to achieve a complete cure, and the recipe was simple: they would travel to the United States. So they didnt have a minute to lose, and the first thing they were going to do was get their passports, and then to the embassy to get entry visas. Reluctant at first, but dutiful, and finally sure, Doroteo followed his mother from one place to another, and he began to live out his last days as if the only good hed ever possessed was hope. But youve got to shave, son. Youve got to look your best so the gringas will want you. You have no idea how much Id love to have a blonde daughter-in-law! The consulate said no. But mother and son lost no time. It had taken five hours to get into the diplomatic building, work their way through several lines, and finally, after the interview, get the denial. In just one hour after leaving the consulate, they had bought themselves two false Mexican passports, which would allow them to enter that country without problems. Two weeks later, they were in Mexico City, and at the end of the third week, theyd arrived in Tijuana. After traveling over three thousand miles in different busses, they now knew by memory the smell and color of Mexican roads. At the border, contracting a coyote was a simple task, but starting the trip was not. All the smugglers who trafficked in people were already booked full, and they asked them to wait a month, but a month was too long. A month is a month to an average, healthy adult, but not to an old woman and her dying son. They paid more, and in just two weeks they were crossing the border at San Ysidro. And thats just where they were when Doroteo managed to get over that last rise and catch sight of the cluster of strangers. When Doroteo spotted the group on the shore, his mother had already been watching them for quite some time, but she hadnt said anything because she didnt want to worry him. Instead, she prayed to the Holy Spirit. It was thanks to his
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power theyd been able to reach the summit and cross over to the other side. At that moment, one of the men from the group below them began calling out to them, waving his arms in the air. His voice still couldnt reach them, but his energetic gestures implied they should hurry and get to the bottom of the hill as quickly as possible. Mother and son looked at each other then, as they had long ago, in Doroteos infancy, when words, perhaps, still hadnt been invented. Youre right, Mam. We dont need to be afraid. Whos to say theyre not souls from Purgatory come to help us? In the mile or so left between them and the people, the sick man took swift, smooth strides, as if hed never felt ill, and he imagined the federal agents were understanding and kind, and theyd send them back to Guatemala without scolding them. As for Doa Asuncin, she was thinking their next attempt at entering the United States would be simpler: they would fly directly to Canada and, from there, theyd just go on to New York. How much would a ticketor rather two ticketsfrom Guatemala to Montreal cost? And once they got there, then what? What were the hotels like in Canadas Tijuana? And the hills at that border? Would they be as sandy and arid as these theyd just crossed? Would it be easy to find coyotes there? And how much would those gentlemen charge? She calculated that at the moment they had $284.50 left, but she preferred to think of it in her countrys currency, because that way they ended up with more money. In any case, she realized she didnt need to worry about such nit-picky details yet. Theyd come fleeing Death, and by now, theyd left her far behind. After seeing her so often around the neighborhood, Death was pretty familiar to Doa Asuncin. The old woman had overheard her once talking with a few of her old acquaintances. Shed sensed Death floating through bedrooms and church-
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es. She knew Death governed her vast kingdom of dreams with great wisdom. The thing she couldnt understand about Death was her eagerness to carry off the young man. Next time, Doa Asuncin was going to face Death, woman to woman, but she wasnt very sure that would happen any time soon. The poor girl must be far away. Shes most likely still wandering around asking for us in Guatemala. But yes. If I ran into her, Id pull her aside and tell her, Put yourself in my situation, maam, because you must have children also. Remember its usually the children who bury the parents, and not the other way around. So dont put me under the strain of carrying my only son to the grave. And another thing, if you want to switch things around, do it. Take me instead, because its getting to be my turn anyway. But before you do, give the young man a little bit of time to recover his health. If you dont, therell be nothing left of him for my wake. Of course she would tell her that, and surely Death would admit that Doa Asuncin was right and maybe even correct the mistake shed almost made, and she would beg Doa Asuncins forgiveness and lay the blame on the nature of her work and on how alone she was as she walked the vastness of heaven, but Doa Asuncin, always tactful, wouldnt want Death to have to give all those excuses, so shed quiet her with some appropriate comment about how beautiful pale women are when they dress all in black and let their long hair flow free. Broken down and resigned, but almost happy, Doroteo kept walking toward the group of strangers. Serene as a spirit, his mother was still thinking about Death when she noticed that one of the men, the one who looked like the leader, broke ahead of the rest, and came toward them. He was now only a few hundred feet away, and with the dawn glowing behind him, it was impossible to see his face, just the shadowed footprints he left behind him in the warming sand. Then the woman
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noticed that these footprints headed straight toward Doroteo, and she ran to put herself between the two men. But that gesture wasnt necessary, because a friendly voice spoke up in warm, open Spanish, Youre the folks from Guatemala? Weve been waiting for you since last night. What slackers these Guatemalans have turned out to be . . . And you must be Don Doroteo, but its obvious from a mile away you need a tequila to get you in shape. Were here to take you to the city . . . Of course, you know who we are, dont you? Were the coyotes from the other side. He said it just like that, off-hand, as if he werent saying anything important. It was now six oclock in the morning, and there was so much light that Doroteo and his mother spoke looking skyward, as if blinded by happiness. And could you tell us, more or less, how much farther it is to the United States? How much farther? What do you mean, how much farther? Take a good look at the ground, and learn to tell it by its color, because not all ground is the same. Youre already walking on U.S. soil. As soon as he took in the coyotes meaning, then and there Doroteo started getting better. And in that same moment, his mother was heard asking, And do you know, by any chance, where the best doctor in the United States lives?
ois Lane had just died, and Clark Kent didnt know what to do. Facing the rigidity of destiny, he was weak, almost human. In a movie theater in Los Angeles, the day after their arrival, Doroteo and Doa Asuncin shared the painful silence with their burly companion, the coyote whod guided them from the border and had insisted on offering them a place to stay in his home. His full name was Gabriel ngeles, but his friends called him ngel Gabriel.
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No. Thats crazy. Keep your money, hed told the old woman. Others will pay now; in fact, you must come stay in my house in Los Angeles, because theres no way Im going to let you leave. Besides, you dont know how much you remind me of my own dear grandmother who raised me. She must be fluttering about at this very moment, with your same white hair and long fingers, up there in the kingdom of heaven. ngel Gabriel was single, weighed some two hundred and fifty pounds, and had been born in Guanajuato. As a very young boy, hed lost both parents in an accident, and later, when his grandmother died, hed gone north to try his luck. That was fifteen years ago, and now, at thirty, he couldnt complain; he spoke English fluently, he had a green card, and hed even been able to apply for citizenship. But he felt very alone, and hed been thinking maybe hed go back to Mexico to marry some lovely woman and work in the tourist industry. The coyote profession wasnt exactly prestigious, and it was starting to cause him some problems. He offered them his house, and Mrs. Martnez de Silveira accepted, because, among other things, it was her own habit to offer lodging to whatever friendly people passed through Guatemala City, but she did stipulate one condition: she would prepare the food, and it would have lots of cow tail, which is good for the blood, and garlic, because shed heard it was a holy remedy against all kinds of maladies, including bad luck. The search for a doctor had to wait a few days because they had arrived Friday night, just as the work week was ending, so mother and son spent all Saturday watching ngel Gabriel in the yard assembling an automobile that was half Ford and half Volkswagen. Sunday, the car worked, and they went shopping; and now, as the afternoon wore on, they were watching Superman in a neighborhood movie theatre. The hefty coyote couldnt handle the death of Lois Lane and he broke down weeping inconsolably. Even though he tried
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to be discreet, he just couldnt accept a tragedy so irreversible it impacted even an immortal being, and he began to cry out, Fly, fly. Come on, you have to save her. Its the only way. He knew because hed already seen the movie several times. And he said it with so much sorrow, its possible he was heard. Come on, you have to save her. Clark Kent, who up till now hadnt known what to do, ran into a telephone booth to throw off his clothes and change into Superman, and within seconds he shot straight up until he reached the stratosphere, and once there, he took a deep breath, the deep breath of a man in love, and he flew in a circle against the earths orbit, once, twice, and many times, until he overcame the rotational speed of the planet; and he flew so fast, with so much love and sadness, that he also overcame time, went backward in time, and plunged down five minutes before Lois death, which enabled him to deliver her, safe and sound, from danger. When the man of steel and his girlfriend glided smoothly down and alighted on top of the Empire State Building, maybe they could hear the frenetic applause of a little old lady with silver hair, a big-boned coyote, and a bald man with his head bandaged. Manuel Doroteo Silveira de Martnez would live much longer than the doctor had predicted, and at times he would be very happy, but rarely would he ever be as happy as he had been in that moment when Superman saved Lois Lane. Monday, and many of the days that followed, ngel Gabriels car crossed and re-crossed Los Angeles in search of the best doctor in the United States, but they didnt find him. Its not that they didnt find the best doctors; they just were never able to see one of them. The first time they arrived at a hospital, Gabriel did his best to translate as they explained to the receptionist that they were looking for the best doctor in the United States to see the bald gentleman, the one with the
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bandage, whos sitting over there against the wall, and this lady is his mother who wants to be the first one to talk with the doctor so Doroteo doesnt find out, because he happens to have brain cancer, and the doctor in Guatemala only gave him three weeks to live, and thats if we start counting from today, and the lady says this is impossible because the gentleman is her son, and hes always been a very good man. What did you say? No, miss. Please understand. I cant speak any louder because I dont want him to find out, even by chance, that Death is looking for him. Just one moment, miss, the lady is explaining something else to me . . . Thank you for waiting. What the lady is telling me is she wants to know if the doctors in this hospital are already applying an invention she read about in Selections thats made up of very clear water thats not really water, and it passes through the whole body without the man realizing it . . . . and that water, that wasnt water, had the power to clear away sickness, unhappiness, failure, adversity, desperation, fear, sorrow, terror, pain, suffering, tears, misfortune, rage, melancholy, helplessness, fury, anxiety . . . . . . and that water didnt run through the body, but through ones life . . . . . . it would open a path through destiny and illusion . . . . . . and it had the power to cure nightmares, doubt, deception, fatigue, uncertainty, disenchantment . . . And let me explain, miss, that this lady believes she read in this same article, although shes not sure it was there, that terminal illnesses originate in the soul and not in the body, and so the doctor wouldnt need to work very hard, because he would only have to make a few adjustments in the body . . . What did you say, miss? One moment, excuse me, now Ill translate. Doa Asuncin, the young lady wants to know if you made an appointment with the doctor, if you called or wrote from Guatemala.
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No. She says no, but the doctor will understand when you tell him that Doroteo was always a good son. And the young lady also wants to know if you have insurance and what kind of insurance you have. The lady doesnt know what youre referring to. The young lady says in that case the first consultation will cost $790, plus taxes, and she also wants to know if you already have a commitment for the nineteenth of January next year at 10:15 AM, because she can schedule an appointment for that day. The lady wants to know if the doctor could see her this afternoon. She also says to please ask him if hed be willing to accept, instead of the $790, some gold jewelry she has, and this piece Im handing you is her wedding ring. Pick it up so you can see how much it weighs. Miss, please dont interrupt me; Im just translating what the lady is saying. No, Doa Asuncin, it seems the gringa isnt listening. I have the feeling she has some kind of problem with her ears. In fact, I dont think she can even see us. Now shes left, and shes closed the little window. If you want, we can wait until it opens again. For one hundred and four days, they covered seventy-seven clinics, hospitals, and private practices. Many times they preferred to leave the patient at home so he wouldnt be uncomfortable, while Gabriel and Doa Asuncin threw themselves into the frenzy of freeways in the coyotes strange car. Never, in many years, had it been so hot in Los Angeles, and the city, with its buildings and speeding cars, seemed to float in a sweltering orange vapor. And thats how their days went, but the nights were different: arriving home, the mother summoned up an optimism so contagious, it infected the coyote and the sick man, and perhaps everyone within twenty-five miles. Nothing happens on
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earth that doesnt originate in the will of God, and if this doctor didnt want to see us, it must be because hes not the best doctor in the United States, and God is taking care of us, so well find the right doctor one of these days. And that doctor will make it so you never have to use that hateful bandage again, and after we get through all of this, if you dont mind, Gabriel, well go with you to Guatemala and buy a big farm, which you will run, and well never have to go into the cities, because thats where demons and sickness skulk about, waiting for us. In those moments, the sick man sang and played a guitar ngel Gabriel had purchased in Guadalajara, and sometimes he required a shot of tequila to clear his throat. It was as if that house had just invented joy, and after the second shot, Doroteos voice grew so intense, it was as if Death had come home to get drunk with him. As for ngel Gabriel, he agreed it was a good idea to go work in the countryside because with the work Ive got here, life has lost its flavor, what with these people from the Migra always hot on our heels . . . They dont let a man make an honest living anymore. And this conversation was repeated each night, as if it were a dream each of the protagonists must dream until the end of time. In this way, without even noticing it, Doroteo far exceeded the time that, according to science, was left to him on the earth. But this wasnt enough for his mother. She was determined that he be definitively cured, and she was sure she could make it happen. Whats more, one night she had a dream without imagesjust the voice of an archangel who revealed to her that the kingdom of God was not in hospitals, nor among the doctors of Los Angeles. The next morning she began packing their bags. They would go to the famous University of California at Berkeley, where, according to what she had read, they had invented an atomic bomb one-and-a-half-millimeters thick that could be used advantageously in the fight against cancer.
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It was so effective that when it was detonated on the patients night table, it vaporized the stench of sickness into perfume. ngel Gabriel couldnt accompany them to Berkeley, but he put them in contact with a Peruvian family surnamed Len. Don Adriano and Doa Gloria are good people, as their last name indicates. Theyve always treated me like a son, ever since we met at a flea market where we worked together. Tell them Im doing well, and ask them to come stay a while with me. Tell them to dream of me. Tell them that sometimes in my dreams I see myself visiting them. The Lens were the first Peruvians Mrs. Martnez de Silveira had ever met, and the odd way they pronounced Spanish stood out to her. The song can vary from one people to another, but really we are all one people, she told herself after the Lens came to pick them up from the Greyhound station and took them to a house where they lived with two single daughters and a small grandchild. The house is small, but its the heart that matters. Youll stay here until Don Doroteo has been completely cured, or for as long as you like. Dont worry about a thing. The other Peruvian Doa Asuncin met was a writer who worked as a visiting professor at the university, and who had published books about witches and saints. She knew next to nothing about him, but shed heard he wrote about saints as if he spoke with them, and about real people as if he dreamt them. It didnt seem like much to her. But she sought him out because she wanted to ask him to help her contact the wise person at that university who had discovered the atomic remedy for cancer, and the Peruvian listened to her with admiration, with his eyes fixed on her, as if he were copying her life, or as if they were both fictitious characters. Afterwards, while he took her around campus, he let fall crumbs of information, trying to soften the impact of the truth. And the news wasnt exactly good: Berkeley didnt have med-
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ical faculty. Moreover, it seemed it was still going to take a while before a cure for cancer was invented. Do you mean to say this magazine is mistaken? And how many days, exactly, will it take to be able to cure cancer? The Peruvian friend didnt know, or maybe he didnt want to tell her, and as far as the magazine was concerned, no, it wasnt mistaken. It just happened to be an issue from thirty years ago. It talked about the then future applications of atomic energy in the field of medicine and about experiments they did during that time in the atomic laboratories of Lawrence, an annex to UC Berkeley. But she wasnt going to be intimidated by this new failure. By now, mother and son had spent almost one year and one month outside of Guatemala; that meant the sick man had exceeded by one year the time-span the doctor had predicted for him. And in spite of this, committed as she was to finding a definitive cure for Doroteo, there was no way Doa Asuncin was going to go back to their country now, as her son had suggested a few times. Besides, it was clear Death had been evaded, but not defeated. Incidentally, what would Death be like? Doa Asuncin imagined her lovely and sad, as if she were pining away for some impossible love. It occurred to Doa Asuncin that Death did things against her will, and that it hadnt been her idea to take Doroteo. Perhaps Death was still in Guatemala, or maybe she was now where they had once been, getting passport-size pictures taken, standing in endless lines, seeking a visa in the consulate. Or maybe they had denied her entrance to the United States and now she was climbing over a sandy hill, walking and walking to get to them as quickly as possible. In any case, the old woman thought they had finally gotten somewhere. The writer had introduced her by phone to a friend of his, also a Peruvian, who was a social worker in a local hospital, and she would do everything possibleand impossibleso Doroteo could be seen by U.S. doctors.
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And thats what happened. What they had been seeking for more than a year, Diana arranged in fifteen minutes. She fiddled a bit with the admissions office computer, typed in Doroteos name many times, and after a moment of suspense, the printer began spitting out a small card. This is your sons insurance card, and with this, they will see him at no charge to you. The appointment is Monday morning at 10:30. Bring your son that day, and get here half an hour early. Please, dont respond to any questions they might ask. Come see me, and dont worry about a thing because Ill be with you the whole time. Ill be your interpreter, and I will speak for you. Even though it might not look like it, this young lady knows what shes about, Doa Asuncin told herself as she took the ID card and looked at Diana. Her eyes were so intensely dark, it seemed she had always walked at night. And it would be precisely those same eyes that would tell Doa Asuncin the painful truth. It was after two weeks of hospitalization and after many prolonged examinations. The doctor says there might not be a cure for Doroteo now. Excuse me, one moment . . . Yes, doctor, thats what Im saying. The thing is, Spanish is more synthetic, and besides, the lady doesnt need to know those details . . . The doctor is surprised Doroteo can walk in his condition, and he wants to know what you have been giving him, and what doctor has been seeing him these past few months. . . . Yes, doctor, thats what the lady says, that she gave him food with a lot of garlic and cow tail . . . And tell him also, Diana, that I gave him cow brains in his omelets, but I stopped giving him them, because everyone who eats cow brains begins losing their memory, or they dream that their memory carries them off to an endless green grassland . . . Excuse me, maam, but the doctor wants to know if you have been giving him some sort of medicine . . .
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Yes, doctor, mint. What the lady is saying is she gave him infusions of mint and she also bound up his forehead to reduce the swelling . . . and she also says they havent seen any doctor since they left Guatemala . . . And the lady wants to know what you see as odd in her son . . . What was that, doctor? No, doctor, forgive me, but I cant repeat that. Remember she is an elderly woman. But the elderly woman read in Dianas eyes what she hoped to hide from her. The blood analyses, the X-rays, the electric probes, the ultrasounds had penetrated deep into Doroteos brain, but they had found nothing healthy. Nothing, absolutely nothing. What did you say, doctor? That you wont be able to see him anymore? That you can, but it wouldnt do any good? That, at most, he has three or four weeks left to live? Nothing, what we call nothing. There was nothing left inside him. If the illness did not advance further, it was because there was nothing left to destroy; and if Death did not come for what was left of Doroteo, maybe it was because, fooled, she had walked right past him. The amazing thing was that this man kept on walking, and he did it holding on to his elderly mothers hand. He walked now without a shadow in the middle of a country that was not his own. Nothing. There was no living matter within this body, and what science proved is what any person knows: that we are made of hope and clay, but mostly hope. Nothing but nothing. There was no way to rebel against destiny. That was the only time the lady seemed to show she was a human being just like any other: the doctor had barely left when she fainted and didnt come to for several hours. What we call nothing. Maybe everything was like that. Maybe people and things werent real. Maybe the earth had never rotated, and everything had been an illusion . . . But there was Diana, and Marcela Len too, helping her. Moreover, her fainting spell had occurred in a hospital room. A
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different doctor saw her, a very fat Tejano who spoke Spanish and smiled like Santa Claus. Grandma is going to be fine. For now, we are trying to control her blood pressure. What shes had is an attack of hypertension normal for her age and the likely result of some emotional state. Did they give her some bad news? Will you look at yourself, Asuncin? Are you going to let yourself be defeated, just like that, by one piece of bad news? The things you see in this world. She was going to have to open her eyes soon so these pretty girls wouldnt keep worrying. But she kept them closed because she wanted to keep chastising herself for her failure at reasoning the news. Dont worry, the Tejano doctor said a few hours later. Were already in the clear. The ladys blood pressure is back to normal. She must be sleeping now. You have to understand she is elderly. Her? Elderly? He would see, that fatso, what she was going to tell him when she opened her eyes. But, if she was now healthy, like the doctor said, why open her eyes? You see such lovely things with your eyes closed. When she wakes up, well give her a clean bill of health. If she has any problems, call me, any hour, and dont worry about a thing. Im Dr. Ramn de Len. But yes, she should rest, and she should watch what she eats. No salt, of course. Watch what she eats? . . . But she was the one who prepared the food, and the Lens were delighted with her Guatemalan cuisine. No sir, he would see, this fat quack, what she was going to tell him when she woke up. But she continued to rest, her eyes closed, strangely happy. Perhaps, in this moment, she was figuring out something she would say later, something she had read somewhere: that God is inside us, more deeply inside us than we are inside ourselves. Why yes. Thats it. The problem is the doctor himself doesnt know. If he did, he would have cured my boy by now. Well, no. Of course he doesnt.
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She woke up well and more sure than ever that the doctors were mistaken. It was disappointing that this could happen in the United States too. But in any case, her son hadnt needed them the whole year, and none of those horrible headaches had happened again. Maybe the change of climate and the mint had been his remedy. But this much was certain, now was a good time to say their good-byes, to avoid being a burden. Leave? Did she have any idea what she was saying? Where were they going to go? . . . But if she was fine here . . . No, absolutely not. Doa Gloria and Don Adriano, Marcela and Pilar, the daughters who lived at home, and also the other children who lived close byall of them opposed the grandmothers plan. There was no way they were going to let them leave. And finally, they were anything but a burden. In addition to helping in the kitchen, Doa Asuncin spent her days caring for the familys babies. Their parents stopped by and left them with her every morning. And Doroteo? Didnt he help with purchasing things for the flea market? Furthermore, his training as an assistant accountant had allowed him to advise the family and many immigrant friends in preparing their taxes . . . In no way were they a burden, and they were going to have to stay with them, because they were part of the family now. And so the months in California crawled along, one after the next: it was as if time also had forgotten how to run, and as for Death, she didnt even dare to knock on the door over which Marcelita had pinned a picture of St. George slaying the dragon. Doroteos only pathological symptoms consisted of sudden attacks of stupor that lasted several hours but didnt cause alarm. In those moments, he talked with everyone, but he didnt hear himself talking; he thought he didnt think; he dreamed he had already passed on, and he wandered the house with his eyes closed as if he were being guided by his guardian angel. Doroteos gone to take a little walk in heaven, they said. When he came to himself, it was as if he were recovering
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his body, as if he were putting it on again: there was something in him not of this world. And Doa Asuncin pondered. If the doctors of the most advanced country in the world couldnt cure Doroteo, then science was useless. People were traveling to the stars, but there was no doctor who could cure, for example, the evil eye, a wrenched spirit, nor the pain of impossible love, and they didnt even know what material dreams are made of, nor in what part of the human body the soul is situated. Good for nothing. Science was good for nothing. If she had known it before, she would have stayed in Guatemala: a good master healer there would have gotten rid of the terrible pain in the young mans head. But go back now? Impossible. The poor boy wouldnt be able to handle the journey. Wait a minute . . . couldnt there be healers here like the ones in Guatemala that they called arjunes that were born with a cross marked on their foreheads? No, arjunes, no. But there were other kinds of healers, lots of them. Pilar Len had heard of an Ecuadorian master who had an office in the Mission District of San Francisco where a lot of Hispanics lived, and of course Pilar offered to accompany Doa Asuncin. No, Doroteo didnt need to come with them. They just needed to take along some personal article of hismaybe a handkerchief. When would she take her? It was now Friday afternoon. Next Monday, certainly, they would go together to the Mission District. Wait until Monday? No, my girl, we dont have time to be patient. This man is going to cure Doroteo, or my name isnt Asuncin. She convinced her, and they left. Two hours later, after crossing the Bay Bridge well over the speed limit and getting lost for a good long while in a maze of dubious streets, they reached the third floor of a squalid fleabag and managed to meet with Manuelito, the Ecuadorian master. Its really too bad, isnt it. He explained that he wasnt going to be able see them that day, because, sadly, they had arrived too late.
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The lady has come from Guatemala; she has a son whos very bad off. Come on, Don Manuelito, dont focus so much on timeas if you were a gringo. No, it wasnt about that. If it were up to him . . . If it were up to him, but he had very strict orders. Orders from above. On the other hand, Monday would be fine. They would have priority over the other patients, and they wouldnt even have to pay for the consultation. But what orders from above could be so powerful to keep him from seeing them right now? It was revealed. Don Manuelito cured his patients with the assistance of three deceased doctors who examined the patient and deliberated in heaven. What time does your watch say? 5:15, right? Like mine. The thing is, they only see patients until 5:00. By this time of day, theyve already closed their office. Of course they would wait until Monday. Dont worry so much, Pilarcita, Doa Asuncin entreated her, and she assured her that, now that she thought about it, there really was no hurry because Doroteo was already getting better. His only problem was he escaped from the world for a few minutes every now and then. But she didnt know there was a surprise waiting for her. Doa Asuncin had turned seventy-nine in Los Angeles and she would turn eighty in Berkeley. When they got home, after the unsuccessful visit to the healer, she found that the Lens had organized a party in her honor, and just over eighty people would be coming. At the get-together, the lady ran into the Peruvian professor again, and she counseled him to protect himself against the shadow sickness, an illness that strikes writers, causing a sudden panic attack on the streets, the result of entering and leaving ones created world too quickly. Sometimes ones shadow could be split in two.
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They were interrupted by an Argentine singer who went by the name of The Chansonnier of the Americas. Little shadow, come back soon. Come back, cuz Im gonna miss you, he sang in a voice designed and modulated to simulate the aroma of an insurmountable distance. When people talk about shadows, they talk about the nagual. The person who thinks about shadows does so because he misses his nagual, Doa Asuncin suddenly said, and the professor didnt want to ask her what a nagual was because he realized she was talking to herself, to her soul, like women talk when theyre ironing. Dont tell me you dont know what a nagual is. Its a shred of shadow. Its a shred of our shadow that has escaped from us. Anyone could have recognized that the lady was talking to herself, and probably trying to convince herself. She talked as if she had suddenly found something shed lost. Ill explain it a little better so you understand me: the same day and the same hour a man comes to earth, a little animal is born in the forest that will be his double, and, from that moment, the life of one is tied forever to the life of the other. That animal is his nagual. The mans health and destiny are tied to the nagual. And if someone wanted to know how long it had been that way, this was also explained: men and beasts had been tied together since the time of Adams sin, and they would be until the end of the world. Yes, of course, that meant a mans health would depend on the health of his nagual. Didnt they teach you that in Peru? Any Guatemalan child knows all about it. Ah well . . . Now, I would like you to clear up a concern of mine. Do you know in which part of the United States I could find a big forest? I mean a forest so big, it can be home to every species of animal that exists today, and also every kind that doesnt exist now, but that we see in dreams.
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The writer responded that, without a doubt, that place was Oregon, the state north of California, and he added that, according to a scientific report, every spring trees appear there that still havent been dreamed. Well then, thats the place Im looking for. There, my son can be cured. We just need to find his nagual . . . But she couldnt keep thinking about a new trip, nor about a different type of cure. At least not at the moment, because Saturday after the party, the misfortune the doctors had predicted began. After three successive spasmodic attacks, Doroteo had fallen into a lethargy so deep there was no way to wake him up. He didnt respond to his mothers calls to drink his soup, nor to the scent of agua florida they wafted under his nose, nor to the drops of holy water they dripped on his forehead. At six in the evening, the doctor arrived. It was Ramn de Len, the fat, friendly Tejano who smiled like Santa Claus. But this time he was quiet and reserved. After listening very carefully to the patients chest through a stethoscope, as if he were attending a child, he faced Doa Asuncin: there was no need now to even do lab work. It was clear Doroteo was gently dying. He had lasted more than a year since they had foretold his end. He hadnt had pains in all that time. Sincerely, maam, that is a miracle. He isnt going to suffer now either, because from one moment to the next, he will find himself with Death in his dreams. How much longer would he last? The doctor didnt know precisely. His brain had already ceased to function. Now the only thing left was for his heart to stop beating. That could happen in a few hours. He inserted an intravenous line for saline solution with little conviction it would do any good, and before leaving predicted, This man is dying, and he has just hours left to live. Maybe three. Maybe more, maybe less, but hes not going to make it to Sunday.
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A priest summoned by the Lens arrived shortly. It was Father Mark, Marquitos to his Spanish-speaking parishioners, and he had a parish in Independence, Oregon, but he was in Berkeley taking a short course in liberation theology. He anointed the sleeping man with holy oils and began a long, sad prayer that drifted up, like smoke toward a very high sky. Up there, surely the angels intoned hymns of glory, played bugles, and rang bells as they prepared to await Doroteo. When the prayer ceased, all was silent, and they all looked at each other as if they were already dead. As for Doroteo, he wore a placid smile and his eyes were half-closed. He was there, but then again, he wasnt. Perhaps he had already finished losing his shadow. It was evident hed begun to dwell in the realms of Death. Let us pray our brother Doroteo reaches the peace and light of the blessed soon. Not so soon. Hes not going that fast, Father. She thought it, but she didnt say it, simply because it was Doa Asuncins nature to be polite. And purely out of politeness, I havent asked you how its possible that todays priests dont believe in miracles. When the doctor and the priest had left, she announced her intentions to the family in a tone that did not leave room for reply: she definitely did not trust the Tejano doctors diagnosis, and as for what Father Mark said, she would pray, yes, but there was no way she was going to ask that her son be accepted into heaven right now. It wasnt his time yet. Now she was going to pray to implore God to cure the young man once and for all, and to promptly correct the serious injustice he was going to commit by prematurely carrying off a man who had always been a good son and an excellent Christian. Gloria de Len accompanied her as she prayed the rosary of fifteen mysteries, and afterwards, she left her alone in her talk with God. That was a conversation in which God did not have the upper hand: Doa Asuncin berated him for being
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unjust and reminded him of Doroteos kindness and nobleness, and how handsome hed looked the day of his first communion when he was barely ten years old. And God wouldnt let her lie when she said that this young man had been a model citizen and an exemplary husband, who had suffered as Our Lord on the Mount of Olives must have suffered, when his wife died in childbirth, and that he had never remarried because he wanted to remain faithful to her memory, and that he had been his aging mothers sole support and an example to his family in all his adult years. Was it fair to take him, just like that? No, my dear God, it seems that, in this, you are mistaken. The ones who were mistaken, as became evident, were the doctor, science, and nature itself, because the man, clinically dead, outlived Saturday and made it to Sunday, and went on to Sunday afternoon, with his mother at his side, a mother who had gone from berating God to giving him good advice, as if he were also her son. Finally, when Monday came, Doroteo continued living, which was a wonder, even though Doa Asuncin felt it was completely normal, like dawn or light, like love or trees, like miracles are normal. Very early Monday, she asked Pilar de Len to take her to see Don Manuelito: We have an appointment now, dont forget, and dont fret yourself about my Doroteo. God will watch over him, and hell be here waiting for us when we get back. So lets go, already. I dont want to get to his office late again. They arrived on time and were received tenderly by the master, who immediately put his stethoscope to the handkerchief theyd brought, which theyd used to wipe the sick mans face. He held a sip of agua florida in his mouth, which he spit onto the fabric, but nothing extraordinary happened. Then he repeated the operation while he said a secret prayer through his teeth, and, in spite of this, the handkerchief remained a handkerchief, and perhaps nothing in the universe changed. Then, very worried, he put his ear to the handkerchief and only man-
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aged to hear an old Mexican folk song that had gotten lost in the other world. But he didnt smell or see Doroteos soul. No. This isnt possible. It cant be. The man is no longer here. I am sorry, but he is no longer in this life. He couldnt accept his own diagnosis: he had to confirm it with the invisible doctors. He called them urgently, but they didnt come. When he was finally able to locate them somewhere close to Purgatory, they told him that unfortunately nothing could be done now, and when Don Manuelito insisted on knowing if they were sure there was nothing they could do, they told him theyd already seen Doroteos spirit wandering about different parts of heaven. As they returned home, Doa Asuncin explained to Pilar why she believed even that supernatural diagnosis was wrong, Even though theyre in the other world, they dont stop being doctors. And when they arrived home, sure enough, there was Doroteo, still alive. And he kept living the next day, and throughout that week. That convinced the Lens that miracles were more common than they had supposed, and they gave themselves completely to the work of supporting the old woman, with the assurance that God was attentive twenty-four hours a day, that he was accustomed to taking his siesta in poor peoples homes, and that he was able to accept, without being offended, the criticisms and reproaches of an elderly mother. In the following days, Doa Asuncin combed through Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and practically the entire Bay Area, accompanied by one member or another of the Len family, and sometimes by Diana, or The Chansonnier of the Americas, or the skeptical Tejano doctor, or by any of the many friends shed met in the Lens house. One after the other, they visited healers, parapsychologists, prayers, lamas, witches, naturalists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, spiritualists, home-
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opaths, yogas, and herbalists with the conviction that at any moment, they would find the cure. Meanwhile, the sick man continued in a coma as wonderful as it was infinite. Mariano and Josefina, The First World-Famous Psychics, received Doa Asuncins phone call with more surprise than delight, because they werent used to that kind of client. Usually they had an hour of radio broadcast in Spanish, and they read letters from ostensible clients who were grateful for their capacity to look jealousy in the face and solve problems at work, to exorcise bad breath from girlfriends, and to snuff out black magic spells, or to locate and return runaway wives and stolen objects; so their clients were sighing Hispanic girls, illmatched couples, or small business owners with a lot of money and little luck, or vice versa. But not exactly an old lady determined to keep her son alive. They would never have received her call, if her voice hadnt come on the air at the hour when they had the best reception. What did you say your name was? Asuncin? You said your name was . . . Asuncin, what a lovely name! And where are you calling from? . . . Ladies and gentlemen, shes calling us from Berkeley, California. No less than from California through the ether waves to this sister radio station in Oregon. And how can we help you, maam? What did you say? Can we bring a young man out of a coma who has always been respectful to his parents and who stays in a coma without dying due to a miracle of the Virgin? . . . Is this a joke? Wait, Josefina, this isnt one of the recordings we had prepared . . . Shut upwere on the air . . . Quick, the curtain music. (A gong sounds. Chords of the Fifth Symphony.) On the internal phone, in confidentiality and outside the transmission, they talked with Doa Asuncin, and she explained her problem to them, but the first world-famous psychics didnt have the heart to play her, and they limited them-
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selves to saying they would send her a replica of the Fortunate Christ and one of the Scapula of Three Desires, miraculous relics theyd just brought from the Holy Land and were advertising on the radio waves of their sister station. But the search for a cure didnt stop there. Im old now. I dont have much time for getting tired or depressed. The Chansonnier of the Americas took her to see an eastern religious group whose members cured people in an amazing way. They held their hands two feet from the patient and at the same time repeated prayers in ancient Japanese. The service was free, and the majority of the practitioners were Hispanic volunteers who could pray, without getting tired, a two-hour prayer they didnt understand. And finally, the temple where they cured people was a pagoda that had been brought through the sky from Japan to San Francisco. They couldnt cure the patient, but they found the reason for his illness. It was simple: one day on a street in Guatemala, Doroteo had been eating an apple. When the core was the only thing left, instead of holding on to it and dropping it in a trashcan, he tossed it into a garden. There it fell on the head of an imp famous for his evil genius and for being a vigilant guardian of good etiquette. What Doroteo should have done at that moment was recite a prayer in ancient Japanese, but he didnt know any, and the imp got angry and lodged himself inside Doroteos head. By now much time had passed, and the possibility of saving him had vanished. The problem, simple at first, had become impossible to fix. It was exactly the same way a poorly treated cold can turn into tuberculosis. Diana knew of another place where they performed amazing cures: The Tao Center. Before going there, she had always taken Vitamin B so she wouldnt fight with her boyfriend. Now, thanks to the science of the Tao, she didnt have to anymore . . . They were seen by Master Si Fu, a venerable old oriental man whose diagnostic method was the taking of the
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pulse. He gripped the patients wrist, but instead of counting the beats, he tried to see if they made music. He played it out as if on a piano: Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti. Ti, la, so, fa, mi, re, do. In a positive case, if the beats were rhythmic, the person enjoyed good health. If it were otherwise, the master had to tune the patient. But Doroteos veins beat out neither Yin nor Yang: some time ago, the music had escaped from his body. Desperate, the master put his ear against the wrist, and he could only hear the notes of a piano that was probably being played on high by an angel of heaven. The sick man had been in an unconscious state for fourteen days, while his mother went every day from one failure to another new hope. But that didnt mean she stopped attending to him personally. When she came home at night she changed his saline solution and prayed by his side as she had done when he was a boy, asking him to repeat, even if it were in dreams, a long prayer that ended in pleading with God for the poor, the sick, for those who suffer injustice, for those who have been lost at sea. And, of course, for obedient children. Was there anyone they hadnt visited? No one? There has to be someone else. And who is The Magical Lady of the Caribbean? No. No way. Never that. The Chansonnier of the Americas was firmly opposed to this visit, but wouldnt give his reasons. He confided in Don Adriano, man to man, that she was a Venezuelan whose real name was Rosa Granadillo. She sang in a casino. She made wrinkles disappear with applications of ginseng and honey. She knew the science of palm reading, and her power was greatas great as her jealousy, because she spent her nights reading her husbands palm. And how did he know so much about her? Simple. They sang in the same Latin restaurants, and she was his most tenacious competitor. But that wasnt why he was opposed to see-
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ing her. He objected because he didnt think it was appropriate for a lady like Doa Asuncin to meet with the Granadillo woman . . . And there was more: she made men delirious, led them astray, drove them crazy just by singing one very special note. The Chansonnier spoke as if he didnt speak; he whispered, for fear of being heard. But his eyes and his hands spoke, and Doa Asuncin heard. Where did you say she lived? We will go see her immediately. When they found her, The Magical Lady of the Caribbean was in the middle of fixing a problem for a Mexican who didnt have his papers in order. There you go. Put on this cologne before you leave for work. If some jealous person reports you, their tongue will fall out. And the Migra wont see you, and if they do see you, they wont be able to chase you, because theyll suddenly be enveloped in music, and theyll start dancing the merengue. She attended to the old woman tenderly, but she couldnt help either, and she told her so. Her powers enabled her to hear conversations taking place on the other side of the planet or to see ships that had set sail three weeks ago, but they didnt allow her to relight a candle that had been snuffed out in the other world. Death and more death, the only thing she saw was death. And who is this Madame Divah? A fortuneteller? Quick, lets go see hershes the only one we havent tried. We dont have much time left. The woman shuffled and split the deck in two piles and asked Doa Asuncin to turn over seven cards. They all came out bad. The worst cards: the King of Cups was running away, the Princess of Clubs was dressed like a sick person, the Queen Healer winked without saying yes or no, the Master Card had no messages because the Master was very busy rebuilding the destiny of an unlucky couple. The other three cards were the Lock, the Club, and Death.
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She shuffled again, and nothing: there were no people, much less messages; it was as if time and the destinies of all the planets inhabitants had suddenly evaporated. To save the planet from a possible universal catastrophe, she reshuffled, and the talking cards slowly reappeared. Madame Divah then read, on one card, the history of thousands of men, women and children who climbed hills, crossed the border, labored as farm workers, and, after dying, went walking underground to rest in their southern homeland. And on another card, there wasnt any history, just a dead bell whose toll spilled over the roundness of the earth. On another card, there was a group of women walking and walking: Its the card of the old mothers. As you can see, each one has half her soul in Paradise. If she would just find Doroteos card quickly. Which one did you say it was? . . . That one? . . . But thats not a man. No, it wasnt. It was a woman with a long look and sweet eyes that were black one moment, then flashed blue the next. Pretty, isnt she? Well, take a look. This little blonde is Death, and it turns out shes looking for Doroteo. When the list of magic healers ran out, it was now the thirtythird day of the coma, and the lady had nothing to do besides stay at home and change the patients saline, keep him tidy and sweetsmelling, and beg him every now and then to wake up once and for all because, son, now I am beginning to worry. That same afternoon, they had an unexpected visit. It was none other than Gabriel, Angel Gabriel as they called him, their friend from Los Angeles, the coyote who had helped them enter the United States and in whose house they had been so happy. Ex-coyote, if you dont mind, Grandma, Angel Gabriel corrected her. And he told her how many things had changed in his life since they last saw each other. In the first place, hed changed professions: capitalizing on his ability to resurrect old cars, he had become a mechanic. Hed opened a garage, and business was booming.
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In the second place, Surpriselook out the window and youll see it. She couldnt take in all of what she saw, because it was a house on wheelsmade up of various wagonsthat went on and on, around the corner, and had been built, like his earlier car, from the leftover parts of different cars and from scrap metal. From the window to the corner, two bedrooms were visible. And bet you cant guess what comes next. The colors of the Mexican flag painted in waves across each wagon lent unity to the whole affair. Nope. Youll never guess what comes next. First there was the drivers cab and the front room. The next wagon was the master bedroom and the kitchen. That was followed by a guest wagon. The next two will be yours and Doroteos, because youre going to come live with us, he announced. With us? Gabriel had married a lovely Mexican girl, Legal, no problems. Her names Elisa, you know. And do you know what it means to be named Elisa? Elisa would arrive that afternoon by plane and was delighted to know shes going to live with you, because, you know, she never knew her grandma. They were on their way to Oregon. Where did you say? To Oregon, of course to Oregon. A country thick with forests? Right. Thats the place. Where trees that have never been dreamed grow? Well now, I really dont know. But yes, I believe so. And among the trees theres thousands of naguales? Well you see, I dont know. But if you say so . . . A while ago, ngel Gabriel had started a successful Christmas tree business. Now, he was on his way to Christmas-tree country, and he was thinking about establishing himself in a town called Independence where he would also work as a
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mechanic, and they had told him there was an excellent university nearby. Theyve told me its called Western, and maybe Ill have time to continue my studies. To accomplish all of this, it was going to be necessary and essential for Doa Asuncin and Doroteo to travel with them: Neither Elisita nor I can run a home without the experience of a person like you. As soon as he arrived, the Lens gave ngel Gabriel the news that Doroteo didnt want to get out of bed. No, they didnt tell him anything else. They hadnt had time to, because hed come running in looking for the grandmother. What was this about not wanting to get up? Had he gone out on the town last night? Had he outdone himself drinking? That Don Doroteo . . . but it happens to all of us men. Its nothing to get upset about, Grandma. Are you going to tell me it has nothing to do with drinking? Has Doroteo been misbehaving? No, dont even think that. But Doa Asuncin didnt respond to any of his questions because she was transfigured. Suddenly, she asked, Are you really talking about Oregon? About the forests of Oregon? About Oregon Oregon? Well, yes. Im talking about Oregon Oregon, and, if you like, Oregon Oregon Oregon. There were only trees and people there. There, life and death ended. There, eternity beganan eternity of fir trees and wild geese, eagles and cedars, swallows and sycamores, bears and falcons. From there, the salmon set sail for Japan, visit Asia, and return to the same corner where they were born. Whales drifted along the coast, crooning a song to far-away loves. And there, another eternity carried onan eternity of raccoons, peacocks, hummingbirds and ravens, cougars and willows, elms, llamas, trout, ducks, opossums, and salmon. And naguales, too, Doa Asuncin asserted. What did you say? Gabriel asked. Oh, yes, naguales.
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Well, what bad luck that Doroteo doesnt want to get up, because thats going to hold us up a bit. I was thinking you guys would come with me to the airport, wed pick up Elisa, and then wed continue from there on up to Oregon. Wait a moment, is what they say Doa Asuncin said. Thats all anyone knows, but no one is sure. Others are sure she said, Go start up that machine, and that she went into her sons room. What might she have said to him? Nobody knows. How long did she talk? Did they talk? No one can say. Some comment that she threatened to punish him. Others maintain that she told him about Oregons forests where people found their nagual and their shadow, where the spaces between trees were filled by love. Others assert that it wasnt that way: They say Death finally made it to Berkeley and knocked on the door, and Mrs. Asuncin confronted her, woman to woman, Death to Death, and a bird in a tree out front began singing, so sure of itself that Death left and the tree faded into shadow and oblivion. The truth is, they left with ngel Gabriel. At least thats what they say Don Adriano said, who saw mother and son walk out of the house, gradually and surely, as if in slow-motion, and climb into the house on wheels. What others are sure of is that long after the vehicle had vanished on the horizon, a multicolored shimmer floated over the road in their wake. Then there are some who say an angel carried them off. Period.
Florcitas Confession
nly the hand of God can stop me. And thats only if it occurs to him to come down to earth, walk into my house, mix himself up in this fight, and beg me on bended knee to look on the bright side, to not abandon this Christian home and to not leave that damn Santiago for the simple reason that what God has joined together no one shall put asunder, and with the firm promise to give us, up there, once were dead, a more decent house than this one. As if Santiago would really like to live in a house. And now that I think about it, it wouldnt surprise me if he up and died just for a change of scenery, to soar above those towering, flushed clouds, flutter along the paths behind the moon, and arrive content in the kingdom of heaven where, according to what theyve told me, the angels spend their lives singing, and the blessed souls dont have anything to do besides flatter God, play the harp, and God knows what other diversions they have up there, where theyve also told me everyone walks everywhere. No, my friend, thanks for the good advice, because I already know what youre going to say, but only the hand of God can unpack my suitcases, put my clothes back in the closet, make my feet walk back into the kitchen and make my hands prepare his favorite meal and my heart throb with the joy of anticipating his arrival and make my lips ready to tell him without telling him that I understand his two-day absence, and
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I understand the drunken state he will surely arrive in because not finding suitable employment causes psychological trauma in a person as sensitive as Santiago, as he himself says, and as Ive told you, only the hand of God will make my ears attentive, ready to listen to what hell tell me; thats to say, he doesnt care if I understand what I must understand, and if I dont like the way things are, I know what I can do, because womendamn themare the curse of men, and thats the end of the story, if thats how you see it. If God takes my life before Santiagos, and if, seeing I have suffered so much on the earth, it occurs to him to admit me into Paradise, Im going to ask St. Peter to allow me a few short hours to go down to hell and meet with the devil to let him know, just in case he doesnt, about all the things Santiago has done to me, how he seduced me with pretty words and how he has lived with me twelve years, one or two of which hes worked, if you can call it that, and the rest of the time hes lived off what my parents left me, the little his left him, the generosity of friends, and my sewing for decent ladies, that is, the few who are still my clients after all this time, because the others were scared off just by his coming homethe sour smell of tobacco, the blazes he always shouts as he gets closer, and the clatter of empty bottles hitting the sidewalkand others couldnt take it anymore when they discovered hed arranged several mirrors, each one facing the other, from the fitting room to the bedroom, so he could see what it was they did in there, just out of scientific curiosity, as he told me. And Ill also tell him about those still-dark mornings when Santiago thrust himself into my dreams, ordering me to get up and fix some black-foot chicken soup for him and his friends who were on their way over after a very important social engagement. And when I started to protest his laziness, and the bad life hed given me, and the taste of loneliness this house had, and the envy I was starting to feel for the dead because
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theyd passed on to a better life, how many times did he not tell me, in front of his friendsand you know Im not lying because you were therethat he wasnt lazy, it was just that hed never had any luck, and that the jobs offered him didnt suit his social standing, and that I didnt have any reason to complain because if it hadnt been for him, I would still be in that mud hole where I was born, among people with neither lineage nor manners, and why was I complaining if it was all my fault for not knowing how to follow the counsel grandmothers always give, that a married woman should be a lady on the street and a whore in her house, and why was I complaining when hed come along to improve my race, and if he hadnt managed to improve it, it was because I didnt know how to have children nor bear fruit from his seed, no more than a nesting hen whose eggs dont hatch. And when I tell the devil all these things, and the devil, in gratitude, tells me, Thank you, my girl, for helping me condemn a soul, and you can count on me. Now ask me for the favor you want, because Ill give it to you right now, then and there Ill ask him to leave a little window open for me to watch Santiago his first day and first night in hell; and Ill beg him on bended knee not to give my dear husband burning fire or crushed coals, and certainly not forced labor; but rather, a warm, pretty house where he can share his existencewhich will be eternal therewith a woman like him, with a last name just as illustrious as his, who, as soon as she sees him will say, How late it is to be coming in, my dear. Wash your face; you look like death warmed over. And what a stench of brandy you have about you, as if youd just come from a poor persons wake. And whats wrong with you? Why do you have that ghastly look on your face? I might think you didnt like my curlers. And, tell me now, how is it that you havent brought any money? You dont think I believe those stories that you dont bring anything with you from the other life? Of course, it doesnt matter to Mr.
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Santiago what people say, and thats why you havent ironed your suit, which looks like a shroud. Apparently, my dear, you dont know what life is all about. But Santiago will have plenty of time to learn what life is all about, because life will be eternal for him and his new wife. And Ill be content if I can just have a little window to watch his marital bliss one day and one night, just twenty-four hours, but everyone knows that twenty-four hours on our watches equal twenty-four centuries for those condemned to hell. After all this, Im telling you, only the hand of God can stop me, now that Ive decided to leave home. And I ask you a thousand pardons for not inviting you in and entreating you to wait for Santiago with me. And I ask you again to excuse me for not accepting your sound counsel to forgive Santiago, wait for his sincere heart-felt sorrow, accept his intentions to reform, forget resentments, dispel misunderstandings, and start a new life with him . . . Although, now that I think about it, I see quite clearly that you were right about one thingthe part where you told me that before I go I should wait for Santiago, so I can tell him good-byeand I believe thats what Im going to do, and when he comes, hell see my suitcase first and then hell see life the other way around, and the loneliness that awaits him, and hell come to me, where Ill be waiting, cold, disdainful, unmoved, and hell tell me in sweet, lovely words, Where are you, my wife? You arent yourself. Where have you gone? Youre so cold, and you look like youve drifted away from the world, and theres a shadow in you, as if the shadows had swallowed you, and a looming absence wells up in you as if youve already left home on a raft headed for the sea or on a sea coursing toward life. And Ill keep standing there, haughty, cold, and scornful: firm in my resolve to leave, oblivious to his lying promises, elegant like him when he tells me he doesnt work because its distasteful, well-dressed, made up as I always should have been, and with a smile that
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says nothing but kills with the dagger of an old scorn. No sir, Im leaving, and thats what Im going to tell him, and thats why Im going to dry my tears right now and put on my makeup, so hell remember me dreamy and passionate as women should be, so he regrets eternally what he has lost; and once Ive finished doing myself up, Im going to sit in this chair to wait for him, to talk with him when he comes, to ask him to understand, so he knows Im not coming back to him, to ask him to calm down and not cry, because men dont cry, to make him understand that we can always be friends. And thats why Im waiting for him, but, God, I hope he gets home soon, before my anger runs out.
Death Confesses
ow I know what Death is like. She is quite a lady. I just happened to see her yesterday afternoon in the garden, fanning herself like everyone does during these hot spells. I dont know if she was looking in a mirror at the same time or if she was just watching the air, seeking some memory shed lost; whats certain is the memory was evading her. I thought she hadnt seen me, and I took the long way around to avoid getting too close to her, not because I didnt want her to see me, but because it didnt seem right to bother her. Thank you for your kindness, my son. I can tell you are a true gentleman, a voice told me, a voice that was clearly her voice but that seemed to be welling up within me. I know you do that out of courtesy, and you do well, because you still dont need to worry: its not your time. Rather, Im on my way to visit your neighbor, and I stopped by because I wanted to rest for a bit. That, and I love the white rocking chair you have here. Have you had it for a long time? Good heavens, it seems I am getting old. But of course, it wasnt your grandmother who left you the rocking chair; I remember perfectly the time I came for her. It was hotter than Hades, so I sat down to rest while I gave the priest time to administer the last rites, and your grandmother . . .
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ont go so fast, Father, she told the priest. Let the lady rest a bit. What lady are you referring to, my child? Death, your grandmother said, who just arrived and is sitting in the rocker. Poor girl, she must be very tiredlets offer her something to drink. What a woman, your grandmother! Yes, you get your charm from her; thats why I like you. There you go again, you with your fantasies, as if you were looking at Death, when we all know death is essence, not form. Oh, Father, leave off with the metaphysics and offer her a sip of that stuff hidden away in the pantry for my wake. Lets see, speak to her in Latin. Maybe shell understand. And the priest went on about death not existing, Doa Filomena, at least not in a physical form, like you and I see ourselves. Hold on just a minute, Father. It looks like while we were talking the lady you say is not Death fell asleep. And I was pretending to sleep to give your grandmother time to get ready. Oh, what a kind woman. By the way, son, do you know whats become of Father Fernando? Because that man must be very old, and I dont remember seeing him on any of my lists. Did I overlook him? But of course! Hes the one I was missing. Yesterday I was balancing my account, and it wasnt coming out right. Lets see, yes, of course, it was someone who should have died in 1965. That means its been more than thirty years. How cruel! He must be 115 now, and the poor man must be going crazy, watching for me to come any minute now. Oh, my son, the problem is I dont enjoy my work anymore. And sometimes I feel the unbearable urge to quit, especially in these terrible times. Because as you know, son, I can be anything you want, except clandestine, and that is the work theyre giving me in your country. You mean you dont know what it
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means for me to be clandestine? You really dont know? Well, Ill explain it to you in simple words, so youll understand. Its like this: some time ago the military and the police invented a special state that isnt death, but it isnt life either; and theyve been sticking a lot of people thereso many that its difficult to count them all; moreover one gets confused. It could be anyone. Theyll wait for him at the entrance to his workplace, or theyll go look for him in the middle of the night in his house, break down the door, force him to get out of bed, separate him from his loved ones, take him to some army barracks or police station, and spend the night there demanding that he declare himself guilty. Guilty of what, he asks, and maybe hes only guilty of being born, and time runs away scared, not wanting to see what they do to him. And in the morning you wont find that man listed among the living. But hes not listed among the dead either because the police and the army have now taken it upon themselves to say that he cant have died because maybe he never existed, and if you want to, they say, go into the barrackshe was never here and hell never be back. And then what do you do if youre Death? Nothing, son. Work in secret; take him without taking him; carry him away, but with doubts. Who has the heart for that kind of work? Oh, no, son, its a good thing time has almost run out. But we were talking about the time I came for your grandma. Or rather, I was telling you about how your grandmother believed I was sleeping in the rocking chair. Come closer, Father, Im going to tell you about a little sin, she asked Father . . . Father . . . Good grief! I forgot his name again! But Doa Filomena, at your age, what little sins could you have to tell me about? Let me tell you a secret, anyway, she told him in a hushed tone, and I knew she was doing it purely out of consideration
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for me, so I could take a nap. And it seems to me after that I didnt hear anything else, because, thanks to your grandma, I was able to sleep about half an hour. When I woke up, the priest had already gone, and the little old lady was waiting for me. Im ready now, she called to me. I could tell from a mile away that youre very tired, and Im glad youve been able to rest in my house. Oh my, Doa Filomena, you are very refined! I wish I could always deal with people like you, I told her while I arranged her hair and turned her young and agile so she could travel with me through heaven. Oh, what a pleasant lady, and a great conversationalist. The whole way, she told me about her friends and family. She even gave me a few recipes, and she was sorry she didnt have a pen and paper to write down the ingredients. Youre going to forget, she warned me, because I can tell youre absentmindedyou have the air of an artist or an intellectual. And that black dress is very elegant, she continued, to flatter me. I know a few writers, you know, and I have a grandson who just might write a story about our encounter. And when we had flown far away from the ringing bells of her burial and were about to arrive in Paradise, she made me promise that every time I passed by her house I would stop for a moment to rest in the rocking chair. You should know youre more than welcome to it, considering how rested you look after napping there. Its a promise, Doa Filomena. Ill do it, but dont tell anyone, I replied. Oh, please, my dear! Not a word of it. But I would like to ask you a favor, if you dont mind. Of course Ill do it, and thank you for the opportunity to serve someone like you. Then I ask you that, if you run into my grandson sometime, tell him to always keep the rocker, to not give it away or
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sell it, and to not forget that it was my favorite chair, and to remember what I told him about it the last time I saw him. I promised her I would, and what a coincidence, here I am keeping my promise. And now that weve gotten to know each other, make like you never saw me, and let me take a nap, Death asked me as she closed her eyes. And while Lady Death slept, I went inside my house and my memories, and I began to understand clearly my grandmothers message. I remembered that when I came to visit her a few months before her passing, she had also been enjoying the rocker. This is what Ive learned from life, she told me. When its someones time to go, they must let their memory fade, erase little by little the traces of the years, and thats why we old people sit hereto forget and to forget ourselves. And she told me that after each nap, the rocker would swallow her memory of a face, a voice, or some name: They leave me, they fade, they turn to air. In that moment, I understood why Death had forgotten Father Fernando, and I began to guess whod be forgotten next, and I realized that humor and love run in my family. I felt someone smiling at me from heaven, and a bird turned to air and oblivion, and then the bird flew away, and I heard the murmur of a peaceful nap in the rocker and started thinking what Im telling you: I have finally met Death, and she is quite a lady.
Hello, this Is Susan on Hot Line

ou can believe my name is a languid, pale name, and it could be the name of a dream, and like you say, its like the name of a woman who has never walked the street. And its exactly how you imagine it. Im slender and blonde, and my legs are long and graceful, and the color of my body is the color of my life. And the color of my life is like the color of this room I have never left, and that is why my flesh has only been warmed by moonlight. And when the moon slips into my room, I take off my clothes and show her all my nooks and crannies, and I lay down and look at myself, and I touch myself, and I smell myself, and I curl up, and I open myself to the infinite, until damp paths collect along my thighs, until my whole body is a silent, hungry desert, until my silence turns into a moan, and my long legs, my aching muscles, my curved hips, my narrow waist, my firm breasts, my open lips, and my luminous eyesall of me is a lonely body, a fragrant beach, a deep cave, a palpitating wound, a sickly thought, a voice like a howl that repeats your name until you have more than enough love and not enough life. Give me your name, if you want to. Give me any name, and I will start calling you and claiming you in this cell where theres nothing but a warm bed and a woman all alone. Tell me your name, or the name you want me to call you by, and I will bring you to my sheets and my dreams. And I will mention
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your name many times as I pray naked, kneeling on my pillow. And I will pray to you and bring you into my life. And youll be able to smell me, and Ill be able to touch you. And first well look at each other with a cold look, like the cold that, at this moment, is prickling my skin. And first well be a few feet apart. And first well look at each other like two lovely animals. And first well desire each other like two cannibals. And first our wet tongues will wet our lips. And first well be crying out of hunger. And first our eyes will glow like hell glows. And then will never be because when our bodies come together, first will always come before then. I know this name you give me. I have yelled it out with hunger against the rock wall of this room, whereif this is livingI live locked away. I have groped it and held it against my body to ward off the cold. I have used it to roll around the floor with your memory. I have said it a hundred times, longing for your name to be spent and your body to appear. I have repeated it with requests that you not invade my life. I have used it again to beg you to enter and to ask you to not enter, or to beg you to go out so you could come back in. And I repeat it, defeated, when you declare yourself defeated, and you repeat my name three times. Its true, this is my name, and now I know what yours is, and I dont know why you say I dont remember you. Please, of course I remember that you called me Saturday. And before you speak, I can tell you something else: it was the second time you called me. The first was when you and your wife separated, and that was when you asked me what I thought loneliness was. And that was when I didnt know what to say, and you heard my hesitation. And that was also when the call center interrupted to say you had made a mistake in the credit card number you gave them. And that was the moment when you said what had happened is that you had moved up to the gold card from the silver card. And that was where administration
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said they were sorry. And that was also when a recorded voice said you had the right to fifteen minutes of Hot Line at a fifteen percent discount. And that was where you also surprised me by the way you said it didnt matter and ordered them to connect you with me again, with my loneliness, my presence, my voice, my life. What things you say, dear Xavier! I warn you that I dont believe you! I warn you that Im not going to believe you! But I admit its true. Its true that your call lasted two hours last time, and today weve been going for almost three hours. And its also true that you phoned in to the call center yesterday, so they could call me, and they couldnt find me. I beg you to understand: I was at my youngest daughters graduation. Theres no reason for you to be jealous. Ive already told you Im a divorced, single, thirty-something with two daughters. Really, Xavier! What?! What did you say? . . . In love with me? But you dont know me. My voice? But what does my voice have to do with my existence? Oh please, what youre telling me cant be true, Xavier, darling! But you say it anyway. And youre talking more than me, and its supposed to be the other way around. Please, you have no right to sweet-talk me. Yes, its true I have a rich, mellow voice. But I dont believe it lets you guess the rest of me, my naked body in transparent air. No, please, dont talk that way anymore, because Ill end up believing you. Look, Im going to end up believing I am much more than a voice for you, more than a phone line, a credit card, and a made-up story, because I am a secret you have discovered, because I am a dead woman you have resurrected, because I am true, and I am the truth of your life. And on top of that, youve taken it into your head to swear to me that my body doesnt matter if my voice is rich and mellow, and that my yesterday doesnt matter, because my life is enough for you. And you wont let me talk because you want
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my silence so you can listen to me. Because you need my silence so you can touch me. And here youve just picked up the phone, and youre saying you would marry me if I believed in your voice too, if I believed in miracles, if I believed in our own voices when they proclaim that love exists, if I accepted you immediately, like air is accepted and like sunlight is accepted, like the evening is accepted and like mystery is accepted, like joy is accepted and like death is accepted. And I accept, Xavier. And now I cant hold back the urge to tell you that I accept you as you accept me, when you tell me that you love me without having seen me and that you accept me as I am since before I was, from before this life, from the opposite shore, since before the Creation, since forever. And I have believed you, when, through this very telephone, you asked me to toast our first phone meeting and our future meeting in body and in soul and in everlasting life and in flesh and in the resurrection of the flesh. And I have told you Cheers, my love, when I heard the clink of your crystal glass against the phone when you toasted our love in love, in craziness, in seriousness and in imminent marriage. Cheers, cheers, my love. And I believe you when you urge me to reveal my real name, and once again you swear to me that it doesnt matter to you if Im different from what Ive told you, because its not my body in space that matters to you, but the space of my life. And once again you swear youre not interested in my age, because age is only a state of the spirit, and your spirit feels that it knows me from a former life where we never stopped making love, because love never ends. And that is why you insist that I marry you, or because my voice and my life are what interest you for life, like thirst, like daydreams, like sweat, like crying, like silence, like shadow, like oblivion, like my alabaster flesh, like my eyes when I close them and surrender myself to surrendering, knowing how much I love you.
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Did you hear me? The name I just gave you is my real name, and if I say it in Spanish its because that is my real language, and Im not going to say the administration gave me my gringo name, because I dont want to lie to you; I gave myself the name, because I hope to succeed in this country thats so different from mine. And the original color of my hair isnt radiant blonde; its chestnut, which I lighten every day so it will shine under the sun of this foreign sky. Really? You really want to know more? Really, my love, it doesnt matter to you? Thank you, Xavier, for what you just said and for your request that I put aside the false clothes. Thank you for insisting on your declaration of love and on your petition for matrimony. Thank you for making me see that if we are going to see each other this very night, its absurd to disguise my true appearance. Im going tell you, and Im telling you right now, but, first, I must tell you that the administrators of this Hot Line arent the only ones who have compelled me to change my body, take up less space, twist the truth, and conceal the width, the fullness, and the rotund truth of my breasts, my belly, and the round shadow that follows me. Its also my fear, Xavier, and men. One is named Bill and the last is named Antonio. I married Bill in my country when he was serving in the Peace Corps, and we had two daughters. When the Peace Corps had to leave my country, we came to the United States, and I felt better here than there because I adore progress, because I pass for white even if my blood is mestizo, because I dont like Indians, nor backward countries, and because I had married Bill to improve my race, although, out of love, I never managed to tell him that. And thats why, since they were born, Ive only spoken to the girls in English, and I watched over them in their sleep, so nostalgia for the other country wouldnt infect them, and I covered Bills eyes with my loving hands to tell him, Guess who? Do you know who I am? Guess. No my love, youre wrong, thats not my name anymore. Now I have a name in your language.
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And Bill opened his eyes when I took my hands away, and he couldnt believe me, because there I was, but now I wasnt me, and because my contact lenses were green and my blonde hair-do sparkled in the loneliness of our house and because from that moment on, my ID card proclaimed a new first name for me, Bills Anglo-Saxon last name, and my age ten years ago when I was still different from who I really am. And in that moment, when I took my hands from his eyes, I didnt understand completely when he said that yes, now he was truly opening his eyes. And to this day I dont understand why, from then on, my husband turned cold and estranged, hurried and expeditious, silent and absent, as if he were always playing a game of chess lost a century ago. And one day out of the blue, when we had lived in California for three years, he lifted his eyes from the board to declare that our marriage didnt work, that we werent the same anymore, and that he had already made arrangements to move out. And when I asked him in English since when had our union ceased working, he answered me in flawless Spanish, Guess, dear, guess. Antonio was the last man to enter my life. We met in the airport in Lima a year ago, and it had been twenty since Id last seen him, and I was so happy to run into him because he told me the years had been kind to me, even though Im four years older than him, and I was happy too because it had been ten years since my divorce, and there arent very many attractive men around to pass the time of day with. But time was short, because I was heading back to California, and he lives in Lima, although he was about to come work here, and in California no less. So he gave me a business card and a good-bye peck on the cheek and said again that the years had been kind. And on the way home I was thinking that life was also kind and that maybe my destiny now had a name, and perhaps a phone number too. And once I got back, I told myself that the age difference
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was small and that proximity of origins was what mattered, and I thought that only a stupid gringo could have been bothered by my stripping off that Latin guise, and I became sure Antonio would feel secure with a secure woman, mature with a mature woman, and capable of integrating himself into this world here with a woman who speaks English well, who has translated Ezra Pound, and who wears her hair short but lacquered into golden bands that play up a generous body with a pair of abundant arms and a pink shadow that fans out, filling the sidewalk. I called him in Peru and told him that, when he came, he and I could make a good couple, and he said wed talk when he got here, and I understood that his shyness held him back from making a delirious declaration of love, and I kept calling him to gain his trust, and that delirious declaration never came, and I called him every night for a whole yearGuess who, sweetie-pie?until one day he arrived, and I went to San Francisco International to wait for him. Dont worryeverything is arranged, I told him when I picked him up, and you dont need to go to a hotel, because you will be my guest, and dont get worked up about privacy, because Ive sent my daughters to travel in Europe, and itll just be you and me at home alone, finally alone, alone our whole life. Now put your suitcases in my car, because Im taking you toward solitude right now. But it wasnt total solitude I was going to offer him, at least not at first, because I had talked with my circle of friends over the course of the year, and because Id told them that Antonio was bringing with him the declaration all in order, his good intentions, the impeccable kiss, the gold wedding ring, the bended knee, and the marriage proposal, and they already knew the hour of his arrival, the two hours it would take to get from the airport to the town where I live, and the hour we would spend doing ourselves up and undoing ourselves, speaking without words. And I had told
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them beforehand to not hang around for long, because he would be tired, but it would be a good idea for them to throw him a little party to welcome him to our circle and toast our happiness, so he could ask for my hand before the eyes of society, and its those eyes that can now say thats how it was. And if thats how it was, I dont understand to this day his astonished eyes nor his determined silence, nor the way he looked around at me and my friends as if he were in a movie theatre watching a Kafka story with characters from Fellini, when he saw the sign that welcomed the groom and wished the future husband and wife long life. And if that was how it was, I didnt understand his request that we speak after everyone had gone, nor his anxiousness to make me understand that the story of our love was only my invention. And if thats how it was, Ill never understand why Antonio didnt accept my suggestion that he rest for a bit because he was a little confused, and he didnt pay much attention to my proposal of living together until, little by little, our union became more solid, and one day we would be one on the earth and in heaven, in this life and in the next life, for centuries upon centuries. I dont understand why Antonio let me down after a year of calling him long distance from a life of waiting for him. Just one day after arriving, he told me he needed to go back to San Francisco because he had work waiting for him there, and he thanked me for the welcome, but he didnt believe he deserved the engagement party nor my friends friendship, and he was much obliged for my bed but he preferred to sleep in the living room, and he thanked me for my life, but he hadnt come to share it, and for my body, but he preferred to not touch it, and he thanked me for the ham, but he wouldnt be eating breakfast, and he was much obliged for the ham, my belly, my fruits, the huge melons, but he was on a diet, and his lazy heart didnt accept love. Thats Antonio and thats Bill. They are the men, my dear Xavier, who have made me disguise my belly, which is beauti-
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ful like a world, to feign a tiny waist and deny the pounds, the inches and all the weight of my love, to declare by telephone the unjust lightness of those Barbie bodies that can go floating through the air. And I thank you for calling me to your life, because that allows me to free myself from this corset, peel off these tights, undo the belts of rigidity and fear, and know that I am lovely for what I say and because sensible men like you prefer a woman like melovely in her abundance, blonde (even if its a lie), and at the same time rational and just right for living in this world, unlike those insane sirens with voices that smell like clams, and kisses that taste like resurrection, and eyes as dark as eternal perdition. And youre not going to be sorry, Xavier, my life. Youll never have time to be sorry, because my body and my life will surround you all the time, and well have a place in American society, and youll have a luscious apple to devour all the time, although time has been marching by as weve talked, and now I hardly have time to get ready for our date tonight, which I propose be at eight oclock on the dot in a restaurant on Broadway. Do you have a pencil and paper so you can write down the address? . . . Its okay, I suppose youve gone to get them. And now youll see how this woman looks who has only felt the warmth of the moon, and whos been waiting for you all alone on a poignant beach and in a warm bed, and if you want, we can joke about how Im blonde and slender, and my legs are long and graceful, and the color of my body is like the color of my life and my voice is a moan that pronounces your name all the time, but we dont have time now. Ive asked you if you have paper and pencil so you know where were going to meet. And I ask you again: Have you gone to another planet to look for them? Do you have pencil and paper? Why dont you answer me?
Claudia in the World
ne of these nights it will appear on my thresholdthe thin, silent silhouette of a man who wont say a word, because it wont be necessary, and because there wont even be a greeting. Neither he nor I will even know what the other one is named, nor will we have time to calculate the size of sadness, because, swiftly, as if he wore Deaths shoes, this man will leave with Claudia. Tall, about Deaths height, and more stealthy than the treelined avenue that leads to my house, this man has been walking for years toward my life to announce the end of my life with Claudia, and perhaps, the end of the world, too. Slow and precise, he will cross the avenue and then the brief garden, and then, without looking in the window or knocking on the door, he will appear in front of us and say, without saying it, that he has come for Claudia. That is why, if we manage to look at each other, we will do so the same way we would look at someone whos not there. I know because Claudia has told me since our story began. Or rather, since it began to begin and also to end. She entered my life suddenly at 11:35, a long time and twenty-nine days and seven hours and forty-five minutes ago; all of her, with her far-away look, her blue eyes, and her rabbit teeth, looked at her watch, and perhaps supposing it was now time to begin our relationship, she gave me a kiss and then affirmed that she
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loved me but she didnt. Rather, she loved me, but she wasnt in love with me. And she told me about this man who, one of these days, will push open the door and, in two strides, cross my threshold. The day after our story began, Claudia explained that I mustnt think of an eternal romance. Her figure would have to fade away, and the end would have to be like the beginning: succinct. She loved an impossible being, she told me, and that impossible being wasnt me. Moreover, she had loved him since forever, perhaps without needing to know him. And I accepted her explanation as one accepts, unconditionally and without prior agreements, life or the sun, the sun or death. And so she could only love me intensely and rarely. As she had only been able to love her deceased husband. She had warned him too. And I suppose Jos Mara awaited the arrival of the one who always made him wait, and whose approaching footsteps he thought he heard his whole life alongside the everpresent image of the opening door. Once, he was sure hed heard him arrive, and he told Claudia he wouldnt permit the phantom to enter. She would smile. Perhaps she started to look down on him. Who knows. One morning, Jos Mara was certain hed heard a voice and the doorbell, and he tried to answer it. He ran to the door before Claudia. He remembered the speech he had outlined during the patient years of their marriage and their love. He looked for the right word to start with, but he didnt get to say it. Before he opened the door, someone entered his house. But it wasnt the stranger: it was Death. As tall as that other, Jos Mara had confused her for him. He tried to say, Youve come too late. My wife has already forgotten you, or You never existed for her. But he didnt meet the intruder; rather, he encountered the marvelous smile which will come looking for each of us: it was Death, and she left with Jos Mara.
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You know Im not talking about death. Im talking about love. I wanted to remind her it was all the same, but I didnt. And Claudia insisted that we must separate as soon as possible, unless I resigned myself to waiting out with her the time it would take the strangers steps to reach our door. Maybe she was wrong: it wasnt out of resignation that I accepted that dusky, violent relationship. I did it because springtime and the shadowed earth have the same root, just like love and the separation predestined for us. Our meeting also formed part of our destiny, with possibilities for development unknown to us at that time, a destiny planned out with care from the beginning of time, perhaps before those footsteps started walking toward the house. I still love you, I told her at various times during our life together. And the stranger doesnt matter to me: hes not coming for me. I know its useless to put roadblocks in his path, because hes going to show up anyway, but meanwhile, and after meanwhile too, I love you. She might have replied, I believe I loved Jos Mara because he was always looking toward the door; in a way, he helped me wait. I wont be able to love you, because youre not afraid. I loathe you, because it doesnt matter to you if he comes some day. And because, in spite of everything Ive warned you about, you persist in loving me, and you twist the natural order of things. I dont recognize such a magical power in myself, I told her, or maybe I just thought it. I dont remember now. Claudia didnt notice how interested I was in this way she had of taking on love as a problem, a virtue or a personal vice that doesnt care whether or not the awaited one walked toward our door: the only thing that matters is waiting, loving even the absence, the lack of love. I never told her this, but Claudia guessed what I was thinking.
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I agree, she said, but when this man arrives, I will get up and go to him. Therell be no good-bye between us because I wont be able to look at you. I believe I held back the urge to scream or call out to the stranger to come at once. I searched within myself for the key to a precarious equilibrium. The reassuring part of the equilibrium is that when two people look at each other and keep looking and try to see who can go longest without blinking, nothing moves. The overwhelming part is that a puff of air is enough to make everything move. Or, instead of a puff of air, someones arrival. I knew she would walk toward him without looking back and I wouldnt insinuate that she do so: otherwise she might turn into a pillar of salt. Anyway, Claudia and I said good-bye in an airport when I left, not knowing whether my travels would last ten days or ten years. Only a letter from her could interrupt my flights and voyages, a letter that declared the nonexistence of the phantom or the fragility of his invention. A letter that reinvented the moon and asked me, Can you see the moon? so I could reply, I dont see the moon, but perhaps I can see its absence. But the letter never came, and I kept sailing toward a black moon. Thats why I went along blotting out my history. Since I couldnt bring the cycle of Claudia to a close, I would bring my past to a close; I would free myself from all previous memories. When words are rare, rarely are they spent in vain. Thats why they didnt run out during my travels, and I never explained to anyone the only scene with which my far-off homeland haunted me: this absurd way of loving. And no one asked me to explain; they left me at peace with my memory: a man and a woman awaiting the arrival of a stranger as tall as Death. They left me at peace, gazing toward where the sea must be, as wounded animals always do.
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I arrived back in Lima before dawn one summer morning a long whileI dont know how longafter I had left for Canada on a trip that evidently lasted longer than expected. But I havent come back to Peru to look for her. It is no longer necessary or possible. Besides, even if I tried, every search would be pointless. The steam of a particularly hot summer envelops the buildings, and it seems the parks have ceased to exist. All of Lima, with its monuments and its people, seems suspended about three feet in the air, and the cars go by in slow-motion over a thin greenish ribbon of asphalt. A seething ocean current has unleashed this heat wave and this taste of the end of the world. I have walked around like an automaton in those places, perhaps now nonexistent, where she once burst into my life with her slow gaze, her blue eyes, and her rabbit teeth to announce the beginning of a feeling that would never abandon me, like some kind of new dimension of myself. She and I are two invisible beings now: perhaps we began disappearing for each other the same day our relationship began. Perhaps that day, when she looked at me to tell me she loved me but she didnt, I asked her to always look at me, even when I was gone, Look at me always. Look at me because I am disappearing, look at me because someday I will be air, look at me because air will someday take up the space my body fills. How do I live now? Now that Claudia is air, and the air of yesteryear a gasp and some sobs that on nights long passed belonged to her, along with an explosion of plenty and holiness that were mine, when our life together hadnt vanished yet. How do I live now? Now that we are only a couple of absent looks, and air takes up the place that yesterday harbored the initial battle and the final serenity of our bodies. I stayed in a hotel and didnt even try to glance at the house where we lived together before. With no plans, I wandered this
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city that emerged, as Ive said, from an infernal vapor and a sad end of the world. In some towns in northern Peru, when a stranger crosses the village and stops in front of a boarding house or an inn, they ask him, Are you from these parts or from somewhere else? or What life do you belong to? If they had asked me that, I wouldnt have known what to say. And tonight, ten days after my arrival, I suppose Ill take another plane, since I dont have anything left to do here. Then why has it occurred to me to make my way down the avenue that leads to my old house? And why do I imagine Ive been walking toward it for years? I cross the tree-lined avenue and then the brief garden and then, without looking in the window, I stop in front of the door. Which, incidentally, opens without me ringing the doorbell. And here I am, appearing once again on the threshold of my house, silent and precise as a silhouette. And while I follow my shadow into the house, Claudia, who is sitting in front of me, doesnt make the least gesture of surprise. It seems she has been there waiting for me her whole life. She gets up to meet me and, before she kisses me, she looks at her watch, as if she were the White Rabbit in Wonderland, and smiles while she wags her finger at me, as if to tell me, Youre a bit late. And she comes to me, and once again my arms belong to her body, and my life to her slow gaze, her blue eyes, and her rabbit teeth.
The Duration of Eternity
ve always wanted to know how long eternity lasts, and thats what I was wondering when there were just two ladies and a towering red-headed man in front of me at the register in Safeway. But at that moment I felt the shopping cart behind me ram into mine. Ive always wanted to know how long eternity lasts, and thats what Im wondering now that I know we will never see each other again in this life. Thats what Simn had said to Amparo in last Fridays episode, and I couldnt think of what to write next to keep the story going. While I leaned down to collect the apples that had shot out of the cart at the moment of impact, I thought maybe I would never know the answer. And I also wondered if soap opera writers like me could aspire to Paradise after having condemned so many fictitious human lives to endless suffering interrupted only by a short and slippery happy ending. But I couldnt continue thinking about it because I had to deal with the problem of gathering up the food scattered on the floor after the accident with the cart behind me. The owner of that cart was a lady of indistinguishable age, dressed completely in lilac, owner of an umbrella the same color, and she still hadnt made any move to excuse herself. To save her the trouble, when I stood up, I gave her an understanding smile that said, It could happen to anyone.
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But she didnt show any signs of being sorry; rather, she kept herself expressionless and inscrutable, like an old blackand-white photo. Just for a moment, she raised her eyes to look at me, maybe, and while they held me, I felt as if a faraway light was going straight to the core of my body and my life. Finally her gaze finished passing through me, without her saying a single word, and I tried to imagine she hadnt realized anything had happened. I took my place again in the line that now only had the tall red-headed man who turned out to be a yogurt fanatic and a voracious consumer of organic foods low in cholesterol, sodium, and some of lifes other joys. The supermarkets register was completely indiscreet. All the checker had to do was put the sensor over a beet, a carrot, or a can of aloe shaving cream, and the computer would indicate to the whole world not only the price of the product, but also how much fat this man was going to consume, how many carbohydrates it had, the calories, the potassium, the fiber, and other revealing details of what he took into his body on a daily basis. The result of all that was a rather ugly man, forty-something, probably dedicated to church business, but owner of a confident smile that invited everyone to try the excellence of vegetarian food. When I got to the checker and replied mechanically to her courtesies, assuring her that I was fine, thank you, and yes, the day had been nice, I couldnt pull my amazed eyes away from the green glow the scanner emitted, and I wondered if afterwards sober computer characters would reveal the density of my thoughts and the dimensions of my everyday questions about the soul, heaven, and the destiny of love. But I didnt have time to find out because another slam from the cart behind me pulled me out of my reverie. This time it was obviously a conscious and deliberate act, because I caught the lady pulling her cart back into its original position after having pushed it into mine. As before, she didnt excuse herself; rather, she flung me a look that accepted guilt, but with a defiant air.
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Then I gazed at her, wondering if maybe we knew each other and she was playing a joke on me, or if she was an unbalanced person who had gotten out of bed ready to charge at the world, but she was neither. It didnt seem to me Id ever seen her before, and her clothing and the things she was buying were in strict keeping with a woman who wouldnt usually be considered a lunatic, and so I expected her to start excusing herself, but instead she hurled at me the icy resplendence of her stare, a resplendence I could no longer tolerate. In light of this, I tried to believe she was one of my longsuffering viewers. One of the consequences of writing scripts for soap operas in Spanish is that I receive hundreds of letters on a daily basis, some begging, others threatening, to get me to change the characters luck. But it couldnt be that either: we writers are invisible beings. Actors can be recognized immediately, but not those who create them. Hows it going? How are you? I kept on telling the checker, Well and Thank you, but I hadnt put what I was buying in front of her yet. Whats more, I still hadnt finished collecting the apples, and I didnt know what I was going to do. But the girl was nice and permitted me, without rushing me at all, to continue putting my purchases on the belt. Anything else? she was nice enough to ask me, even though I hadnt put everything on the belt I wanted to buy and I still had some apples on the floor that had flown with the impact of the crash. When I was about to ask the checker to wait a moment, the lady came up to me. I have met you before, she told me. I tried to slide past the register as if nothing had happened, but that wasnt possible because I hadnt even picked up an apple when I was hearing that voice again. I have met you before, she insisted in a Spanish with an accent impossible to specify. I have met you before.
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Then I decided to face her, and I looked straight at her. I told her that was truly how it was, or maybe that was how it was, that she also seemed familiar to me, but I didnt know from where, nor where my memory of her face came from, and I added that, anyhow, there was no reason for a meeting between two acquaintances to be so jarring, and that I was very pleased to see her again, but I was in a bit of a hurry and I hoped to have some other opportunity to chat about the memories we shared. I told her this knowing that I absolutely did not remember her, but eager to clear her from my path as soon as possible. You think you dont, but deep down inside you know youve seen me. What you dont know is where it was, but I will tell you very soon. I couldnt wait for her to tell me, and I didnt want to. I dont know if I managed to pick up all the apples, nor how much the total came to, nor what I bought, because all of my actions from that moment on were performed unconsciously. The checker said she hoped to see me again as she pushed a paper bag with my purchase toward me. Then I hurried out of the store. Wait a minute, please. Dont forget your bag! the checker yelled after me. At her side an unyielding voice assured, You want to leave, but you wont. She said it with complete confidence, and I had the feeling that was the tone of voice we will all use at the end of time. You know we have seen each other . . . I think she added . . . in another life, and the phrase slid through the air, or hovered there, as if it had arrived from the depths of time or as if it had just been said in heaven. You know it. I ignored the checker and abandoned my things, rushing out of the store. I had to get to my car as fast as I could; I need-
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ed to make good use of the time it would take the strange woman to pay for her stuffand it was a lot. And thats how it was: I didnt take more than a few seconds; I immediately found my keys in my right-hand pocket, so all I needed to do to make my escape was open the drivers side door. While I did that, I calculated that the lady dressed in lilac would take at least five long minutes waiting for the checker to ring up her purchase, then writing the check and paying, because shed had her cart filled to the top, so I had all that time as a window. Relieved, I opened my car door more patiently and started thinking about the relativity of time, and how its possible to unwrap a second and fill it to overflowing with reflections and memories until it turns infinite. Now I had the key in the ignition, and I thought I should turn it gently, since in less than a minute Id be putting distance between me and the woman who remembered having met me before. Within a minute I wouldnt have anything to worry about, just my reflections and memories. Then I returned to my daily obsession: I didnt know how to end the soap opera I was currently writing. On the screen, it lasted ten months, but it represented some twenty-five years of real life. Its about a pair of lovers who live an impossible love. The first time they see each other, shes fifteen and hes twenty-five. They arent permitted to love each other because of an obstacle in his path. They see each other for the second time after twenty-five years have passed, and now shes the one with the obstacle, but they love each other as if they were only born for that. They can hear each other calling out, and they each breathe in the others scent, even though they are far apart, living in distant, incomprehensible cities, and as time goes by they look at each other with the eyes of those who have been lost at sea. I turned the key one hundred and eighty degrees to the right and it clicked. She tells him that she loves him and they wont
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have to wait another twenty-five years to be happy, but the next week she changes her mind. It clicked, but the car didnt start. He tells her to come to him soon, that they must break from this enchanted circle as soon as possible. She accepts. That was last month. This was definitely not the key: I had confused it with my house key. Finally I put the right key in, and while I turned it, I asked myself if it wouldnt have been better to pick up my bag of groceries, since I had paid for it, and even help the lady who thought she had seen me. At that moment the engine started. Last week, when the story was about to wear itself out, she called to tell him they should forget love again, and a commercial interrupted their lives. A day later, he insists that she come at once and he asks that they walk together always with their backs to Death. But she insists that, lamentably, they must renounce their happiness for another twenty-five years. He replies that the next time will be in the next life, and she swears she will keep loving him. Its not known if they talk to each other on the phone or if they can hear each other through distance, time, mountains, and birds, like two lovesick animals. But unfortunately, while they talk, the time granted to them for a second opportunity to meet is coming to an end. I have seen you, and you know where. I thought how Id spent my whole life writing stories about ill-fated loves, and that it was going to be impossible for me to find another ending for this one. I told myself that maybe the impossible was an inherent part of my destiny, a way of being that belonged to the human condition, and, with no marvelous end for Amparo, Amparo, it crossed my mind that in this moment the Safeway, the houses across the street, the trees, America, the world, and the stealthy starseverything had started getting smaller and soon it would be no bigger that a few apples strewn on the floor or scattered in the dawn.
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Then I supposed there wouldnt be a happy ending for the story, and there were only two options for the end: the first consisted of supposing he and she meet again in the next life, although maybe they dont recognize each other. The other option is sadder, but perhaps more real: instead of finding himself with Amparo, he meets up with Death and goes away with her to Never Never Land. And thats what would have to happen because we are made of faith and sadness, but sadness is more dense. Then I started to understand that the duration of eternity is love, and I thought that it would be a good idea to write or read a story to freeze time and find ourselves in eternity. I pressed gently on the accelerator, and, as the car started moving, I decided to forget that story and, to achieve that, I decided that in the soap opera, the planet would have to stop moving; what would spin would be Death, and thats how we would learn to wait for her and accept her hand, amazed, when she came to gather us. I was far from the store when I wondered again how long eternity would last and I realized that now I knew. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a grocery bag crammed with purchases from Safeway next to a lilac colored umbrella. They werent mine. From the back seat I began hearing a distant voice: Drive down this street, and please turn right when we get to the KFC. You know I have seen you before, and you also know where we are going.
This Letter Will Be Answered in Heaven

s I was telling you, the letter was sealed, and it had always been that way. I discovered it when I was a boy, and I remember it being on the chest of drawers in my grandparents house. Through the years it paled, reddened unexpectedly, turned purple, and finally, it faded into other old colors until it acquired this definitive and memorable amber, which is also the color of letters containing loves beyond redemption. Many times during my adolescence, I examined it, always checking to make sure it had never been opened. My grandmother changed the subject whenever I asked her about it, and my aunts refused to give me an explanation about its contents. Be careful with letters, because there are some that are answered in heaven, Aunt Isela cautioned me. As for my mother, she recommended that I not tamper with things of the past because an evil wind could catch me, or a breath from the past, or from before the past. If that envelope concealed some family secret, the normal thing would have been for my relatives to keep it in the family safety box or get rid of it. The fact that they kept it intact and in such a visible spot gave birth to a mystery that perhaps yielded a painful, secret worship. Thats what I remember about then. I dont know if Ive told you that when my grandmother died, a modernizing aunt turned the family home upside down, but the letter wasnt lost; rather, it somehow ended up next to a sword from Toledo, the
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portrait of my grandfather, and the so-called family crest, inside a bookcase whose doors were always locked. Some ten years later, maybe more, maybe fewer, they opened the case to dust the books, and when the letter fell on the ground, they stuck it in a copy of The Divine Comedy. Thats when I knew someday the mysterious missive would fall into my hands. First, I let it fade from memory, and years later, I opened the bookcase, pulled out the book in front of my aunts, and while I read the inscription Dante finds over the gates of hell, I let the letter slip into my pocket and kept it. Of course I didnt open it, and that is the letter you saw once, Mara Elena, on my desk. I remember your amazement when you noticed it had never been opened and when you saw how old the Peruvian stamps were and when you read the place and date the reception seal indicated: Paris, November 13, 1936. The addressee was Jos Mara, an uncle I never knew because he had died quite a few years before my birth. The handwriting revealed the nervous femininity of an author who had preferred to head the return address with the initials M. A. Z. The passage of seventy years had revealed that her original decision had been to identify herself as the sender with her first name, perhaps Mara. Mara? Yes, lets go with Mara, a Mara filled with fears, who, perhaps when she got to the post office, regretting having put her real name, scratched it out and preferred to write her initials beside the scribbles concealing the most lovely name in the world. But shed done it with a second pen which, long afterwards, as its weaker ink evaporated, erased the scribbles and let the name emerge, that name whose handwriting allowed me to imagine a pretty, indecisive, and frightened Mara, perhaps with shining eyes, as if she had always been looking out the window for the glow of some impossible love. I imagined the look in her eyes and her long hair, and I felt that in the indolent flow of her pen over the manila paper, she had tried to conceal a permanent remoteness or maybe a per-
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manent hope, and I thought this was one of many letters that had been the language and only communication between Mara and Jos Mara. It occurred to me that the sender and the recipient suffered a difficult love, that they had been separated first by some incomprehensible destiny and then by an ungainly geography, but with time, she and he had turned to papers the mail carried time and again around the world from the wildest heart of America in some sad city in the Andes to the capital of the world, after crossing the Atlantic. I dont know if youre going to believe me, but I have imagined it all. I imagined Mara sitting at a hard, dark desk, an ebony desk; I saw her sporting a black silk blouse; I glimpsed her going to the door to verify that it was hermetically sealed. I dreamed her clenching a pen again and again over a blank paper, and finally, I saw her look skyward, like one who seeks ideas and only finds angels and blue animals, or perhaps tears. And after seeing her like that, I wondered who she was hiding from at the moment she wrote the letter. And a vigilant, suspicious father came to mind, one who perhaps had counseled her to end her relationship with the absent man, because only an inconsistent and bohemian temperament can be expected in the kind of men who live in Paris. Or maybe she complied, against her will, with her fathers orders and was writing the enlightened man in the City of Light that their relationship was over, but not forever, because it must continue when they were both reborn in a different incarnation. And, perhaps, she was asking him to please keep the same face in the next life, or maybe, assuming a sudden optimism, she told him that anyway, there in the other life they would get to live, she would have to recognize him, and he her, because we each keep forever the same shadow and the same sadness that were given to us the first day of the foundation of the universe. As the years passed over the sealed letter, my conjecture came to be modified by a few discoveries made afterward. I
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found out that the addressee, my uncle, Jos Mara, had lived in France for fifteen years, and had returned to Peru just once, in 1936, the same year the letter was written and the same year of his disappearance in Spain. That changed my theory. I thought that fifteen years of separation was quite a long time, so that Mara, instead of being the fifteen-year-old girl Id imagined before, was, rather, a married woman, and so I saw her older than before, more attractive, and sadder, writing hurriedly, as if her heart were running away from her, and looking all around, especially looking with fright toward the time when she had united her life with the life of a mysteriously vulgar man. Why and who had she married? Nothing on the envelope could help me guess. It occurred to me that the husband had done it to hide some sad behavioral anomaly and that, perhaps, when she saw that her husband wasnt the man she had thought he wasor maybe he was what she had believed he wasntshe decided to leave him, but it was too late because, according to Peruvian law, if one of the spouses objects to a divorce, the marriage is eternal. Or maybe I was mistaken, and the only thing that was true was she had chosen this kind of man so she would never forget the absent and impossible Jos Mara. And I imagined Mara declaring to him that she didnt love him. And I thought she must have confessed it on a Saturday afternoon, and I saw how her words bounced off the back of a man who preferred, as always, a nap to married life. I imagined her telling him she had never loved him, or perhaps her love had wasted away through lack of use. I heard her assuring him that they must end things quietly, without harshness, and that she didnt care about her share of their worldly goods and that, consequently, he could keep everything because the only thing she cared about was her freedom. I didnt need to conjecture too much to guess his likely reply: Look at your hands and look at mine, and think how
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theyre going to look together, one in the other, hour after hour, day after day, because we will grow old together and because were going to enter the valley of death hand in hand. And look at my hands again so you know they will never sign a divorce agreement, and you well know that without my signature, theres no divorce, no separation, no violating the sanctity of family. And look at your hands again, and think how theyre going to be when theyre nothing but bones and sand because, dont kid yourself, we will die together. And look me in the eyes so you recognize me when I belong to the earth, because we will be buried together, and we will be two faces of sand looking at each other forever, or two hands of dirt that will crumble together, with two gold rings, year after year, for centuries and centuries in the endless earth. I pictured her looking at her hands and rebelling against time and death. I could see her taking up a pen to begin a magic, sometimes painful, exchange of letters with Jos Mara, a dialogue in the shelter of dark ships and slow voyages over an endless sea, and I reasoned that, after some years, in a letter written in dark blue ink, the color of the Atlantic ocean, the man who lived in Paris had proposed the escape. Understand, that was when I thought that, given the choice between freedom and fear, she had chosen love and freedom: I deduced this from the firm stroke of her writing on the envelope. Consequently, I saw him coming back to Peru to get her, I imagined him arriving in Cusco at night, unhurried, walking like those who are fulfilling their destiny. The orange color of the once-black handwriting suggested to me a fierce happiness, hidden in the envelope by its yearnings to last until the end of the world, and thats why I imagined when they met, Mara and Jos Mara had been as happy as two souls must be when they meet in heaven, and they are the souls of a man and a woman who have lived a whole life dying to meet in death.
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Can you believe I saw them preparing their flight? It only takes looking at the sealed envelope again to be sure that, before the date theyd set, they were immensely happy for a few days, or perhaps only a few hours, but we all know hours and days of love have no equivalent in any part of the universe, that they can hold back the suns arrival until at least a day after the following day. What happened next? The only thing the envelope can tell us is they didnt leave together. A letter whose addressee didnt manage to open it presupposes a mistake or misfortune. Moreover, she had affixed the stamps with the rigor and perfection of someone who doesnt dare do anything crazy, or who dares to do something crazy, but doesnt dare run away. Or maybe everything happened in her sleep. In the middle of the night, the husband had aimed a flashlight at her eyes. You are dreaming about a forest, he had told her. That means youre leaving. Are you, now? Youre escaping? And then he aimed the light at his own face. Look at me. Dont forget you married me, and you are condemned to see me for all eternity. And she had seen him as she would see him every day until eternity endeda blue bulge, with his dead face and his heavy, dead arms, waiting for her, waiting to travel through the slow, eternal night the path toward some vague, dark star. And fascinated by terror, perhaps she had told herself shed dreamed it all, and had gone down to the street, where Jos Mara was waiting for her, to tell him, I have to be prudent, my love. And it came to me that she added, My family has counseled me to be prudent. Please understand that we cant do things this way. And one must think Jos Mara would make her see that, lamentably, running away was the only way. I suppose she would reply, Yes, its true. Youre right. The years have gone by and he hasnt agreed to the divorce, but now,
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yes, he must. Give me a few months, please, my sweet love, and you will see. Ill ask him nicely, and hell understand. And I saw him, and I saw her; I saw them looking at each other for the last time like those who will only see each other again when they have passed under time and the waters of death. It seems to me they smiled at one another before he took the path that would lead him away from Cusco and Peru. Or its possible they both believed everything would turn out as hoped, and they gave each other a kiss to be given again when night falls on the long day of Final Judgment, and the souls of those who loved each other return to earth flying as fast as they can. Whats certain is I saw him walking away from Cusco, sinking into the path as the moon grew and grew until it spanned three fourths of the known sky. Perhaps before Jos Mara left, she and he knew, in the same moment, that their farewell was a true farewell because they wouldnt see each other until the day God comes down to earth again, but they preferred to fool themselves, and they kissedwith their eyes closed, so they wouldnt see that death can be swifter than love, and sadness much more dense. And its possible that the night after the failed escape, the husband had approached Mara to tell her, I know youve stayed here out of fear, but it doesnt matter to me. I know your whole life youve been looking to the other side, and I know you have the hope of lasting longer than me, but thats not how its going to be because I dont want to leave you all alone. Ill outlive you both, and youre going to stay with me, looking at my hands and my fingers, because just as soon as night and death come over you, I will close your eyes. Tell me if all this isnt true. In any case, a letter is lighter than all these reflections, but it takes longer to arrive. Of course Mara wrote it when her lover had barely left, perhaps to repeat that everything was impossible now, but that they would see each other in the next life. Maybe she thought it was best to put
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an end to hope because hope takes up a lot of space in the kingdom of heaven. But more than anything, it must have been out of fear and obedience to the man who lived with her that she decided to write the letter, even if she believed she did it for other reasons. We must presume the letter broke the cycle of unfortunate love forever and declared that it was now best not to hope. Hope flies much more readily than a letter, but a letter is usually more nimble, or perhaps more persistent. Jos Mara had barely left Cusco and was on his way toward Lima when that letter was already chasing him. They both had Paris as their destination, but they had to stop in Lima on the way, and they arrived there together, he and the letter. Naturally, he didnt know it, and he didnt do anything to avoid it, but he stayed a while in Lima, or his friends and family kept him there. As for the letter, it was made to wait for interminable customs procedures and the usual political control. After two months, the letter and the man left for Europe, maybe the same day but on separate ships. Or perhaps they traveled together, but, as tends to happen to those in love, Jos Mara traveled invisible. The sealed letter has an address: 33 George Mandel, Paris 75016. We must assume it was received there by the buildings concierge, some buxom Breton enthusiast of Gauloise cigarettes, prophetic tarot, and communism. And we must also expect that she loved postage stamps, and that she begged them from the tenant of the septime tage after repeating to him some old saying from Brittany which holds that love letters occupy a place in paradise and in hell at the same time. Sometimes letters are answered in heaven, she supposedly told him, and she explained to him, maybe, that the magic dice had told her that ill-fated love repeats itself it the same exact way, being contagious, and thats why it doesnt do any good to hold on to old letters.
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As you can tell, Mara Elena, these are all conjectures, but you dont have to be a fortune-teller to guess that Jos Mara, besides suspecting the contents, realized the letter had followed him across the ocean and that they had disembarked together in the port of Le Havre, and he understood that these coincidences only happen in farewell letters. He probably offered the concierge the stamps but never thought of fulfilling the offer, and its possible he ran up all seven flights separating him from his small apartment, but he didnt read the letter; he didnt even open it, and it was left lying on a table, tossed there, without budging, exactly like a spoiled dog, or like Death waits for us, sitting by our bed. Ive told you several times the little I know about the fortunes of my uncle, the addressee, but a while ago I found out that near the end of 36, he abandoned the room he occupied on the rue George Mandel, that he might have left his belongings in safekeeping, and that he gave two books, a few photographs and an unread letter to a guy named Burgos, one of his closest friends. Youre going to ask me what happened next to Jos Mara, and, as usual, youll joke with me, asking me if the type of stamps chosen by Mara could give me an answer. Not necessarily. But I found out this summer. After I visited you in Cusco, I traveled to northern Peru and stopped in at my grandparents house, now only occupied by two of my mothers sisters. I confessed to one of them, Aunt Hilda, that I was the one who had hidden that letter ten years ago, and I swore to her Id kept it unopened. The letter? What letter? she asked me before I could go on. And I told her, but she didnt show any signs of remembering it. I talked to her several times about the sealed letter that used to lay on the chest of drawers where my grandmother had placed it at St. Sebastians feet, next to a candle she always kept lit, but that didnt tell my aunt anything. And so I
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gave up trying to talk to her about the letter, and I told her why I had traveled there from Canada. I told her that in Vancouver, the wild geese spend half the year flying south, and that perhaps thats what was also happening to my soul. I told her that, sometimes, I had the urge to put rocks in my pockets so I wouldnt fly off to Peru, and finally, Mara Elena, I related the story of how we fell in love when you were in high school, and I told her about the situations that, twenty-five years ago, turned ours into an impossible love. But my aunt didnt seem to be listening to me, and perhaps without noticing I was sitting beside her, she talked to me about my uncle, Jos Mara. Among other things, she told me he had moved from France to Spain toward the end of 36, shortly after returning from Peru and about half a year into Francos revolt. It seems he went there determined to die because an obsession haunted him. I asked her if that obsession was a woman who lived in Cusco and who had written him that letter, but this time my aunt showed no signs of having heard me. All we know is that he fought with Buenaventura Durrutis anarchists, and then, nothing. Maybe a machine gun took him, or a gust of wind, or maybe it was an obsession. All that came back was a handful of books, and inside one of them was the letter. Neither my aunt nor anyone else in the family knew what it said, but they had kept it unopened because, according to them, one should not open relics, sepulchers, strange letters, nor secret books. As I was telling you, my love, the world repeats itself, and, without asking us, it takes us for actors. And that must be why Ive decided not to open the letter I just received from you, which I will place in my desk next to the old one. Im not going to read it, because I know intuitively what youve resolved now I know you wont come with me, and I suspect its useless
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to rebel against destiny. It occurs to me now that mankinds destiny is already written from the beginning of time in a collection of unopened letters that God, in his infinite mercy, leaves sealed, letting them repeat themselves before our eyes. Im guessing thats also why my aunt said that history repeats itself when I told her you and I have vowed to outlive the man married to you, and if thats not possible, to breathe in enough air when its our time to die so we dont die when we are dead.
Shadows and Women

ttention, ladies and gentlemen! Come quickly and see what has never been seen before and will never be seen again! Come see how a lovely woman disappears in the shadows of the universe! Come see how Salom Navarrete works magic! Salom Navarrete, the First Mind-Reader of the Americas, who studied in Guadalajara and received his doctorate in India! Come hear the extraordinary story of his poor childhood in Jalisco, his thirty years of meditation in the East, and his triumphant entry into the United States! Come learn your destinypoor and rich, ignoramuses and know-it-alls, chaste and depraveddistinguished public of this city who honor me with your presence! Come one and all to see how the damsel who vanished a moment ago materializes, to see how she emerges from the shadows and how she reappears transformed into the most beautiful woman in the universe! Thats what I was shouting last night until I went hoarse, and thats what no one wants to understand now. But you, yes you must help me. Please, tell them theyre making a mistake, and they must let me go. Make them see that my problem is due to a simple error in heaven. Explain to them that Im just a modest astrologer, and make them understand that by keeping me here, theyre putting in jeopardy the universal equilibrium of the planets, men, winds, birds, fish, and seas.
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If I knew how to speak English, I would have already told the police my story, and I would have been free in no time, because my whole life, through good and bad times, I have faithfully complied with the laws of man and the laws of the stars, and whatever problems I have in my life right now are only due to a few imperfections of the zodiac. I want to tell you, so you can translate for me, that I was born in Guadalajara because this was the most appropriate land that could have been chosen for my birth, if you take into account that I was born under the second house of the sign of Capricorn, and that those of us born under this sign lead a very mixed life, and we only know extremeseither fame and fortune or misfortune and ingratitude from women. You will lose your fortune, but fortune will return to your hands. Nevertheless, watch out for eclipses, because the women you live with will always be carried off by the shadow, my zodiacal map states, and thats how its always been. That must be why I didnt worry too much and told myself everything was planned in heaven when disaster started coming. I believe Ive already told you I was a businessman and sold car parts there in my land, and the truth is I couldnt complain, when one day out of the blue, my wife called me at the store to tell me she needed to speak with me urgently to inform me that she had never loved me and that if she had covered up her indifference, it was because she didnt want me to forget our daughters daily bread, but now that the little one had turned twenty, it no longer seemed necessary to her. Youre a typical Scorpio, I told her, and I added that it was absurd of her to leave me now, just when everything was going well and I was on my way to being a king of the world. Besides, I read her the Tarot, and there it showed an elegant silhouette at her side forever, a silhouette with a prosperous belly, and the manly mustaches of a gentleman in the flower of his life, his fifties, who couldnt be anyone else but me. So she agreed to a
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truce, and during this time, I began giving her what I had never offered her beforeeverything an intelligent woman needs to be happy. I presented her with jewels, urged her to buy fancy clothes, and took her on a trip to Miami, where I bought a condo in her name. Whats more, when we returned to Guadalajara, I encouraged her to enroll at a gym and take dance classes. But the die had been cast: one fine day, she didnt come home from the class, and no matter how hard I searched for her, I never saw her again, and I only found out what happened to her when, a few months later, she sent me a letter telling me that shed gone to live I dont know where with her Cuban dance teacher, and thanking me because the tarot messages had helped her discover that the dancer, a dark man with mustaches, was the man of her dreams. At first, I thought about going to the police so they could return my lawful wife to me, but in the end I realized I wasnt going to be able to do anything to find her: just as the inexorable cards of prophecy had announced, the day of her flight, a solar eclipse had left Guadalajara, Jalisco, and perhaps the whole universe, in half-light. All I needed now was to loose my business to make my misfortunes complete, and thats what happened: one morning a chief of the judicial Mexican police paid me a visit to let me know he was very interested in buying my store, and he thought hed give me a small advance for it and pay me the rest in comfortable monthly installments I would receive at home. Sitting at home, Salom, without lifting a finger. You deserve a break, Don Salom. I couldnt argue with him because I knew I was going to lose anyway, and not only because of my horoscope, but also because its very difficult to say no to a police officer. Besides, the captain needed my store to launder his dollars because everyone knew he earned his living smuggling drugs. Boss, you know this business is my life, I dared to tell him, but the man was laconic and expeditious.
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Well talk again on Monday, he told me. By then Im sure youll have changed your mind. And thats how it was. Monday, at noon, he had me come to his office, and he talked to me there with complete sincerity. He pulled a small packet from the desk and showed it to me. One of my agents says he found this in your store, and hes willing to swear it, in case you deny it. Its cocaine, the pure stuff, but Im not going to detain you because youre a reasonable man. I tried to tell him that couldnt be true, but I was only a common citizen and he was a big shot police captain, with excellent connections in the government. I want to speak with you from the heart, he told me. You have two options: the first is that you deny this little packet is yours, and in that case, we send you to the narcotics police, who are specialists in making the mute speak. And then theres the second option, which is more intelligent. You give up, and everything stays between friendsI never saw you, and you escaped before we arrived; theres just one thing: you have to sign this contract to sell me your store, and I might even arrange to have one of my boys get you into the United States through Tijuana. Since I know its useless to fight against the law and against the laws of the universe, I accepted, and thats how I came to this country, if you want to know, but please dont rush me to finish the story. Let me tell you the rest so you understand the importance the stars have in my life, because, you must know that those of us who come from Latin America are like little animals tied by our tails to a very glorious destiny, according to some authors. And let me explain the rest of the story so you know how I met Lu and why I made her my wife. That way it will be easier for you to make the gringos understand Im innocent of everything they suspect.
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So Ill continue by telling you that, in Los Angeles, a relative of mine invited me to live with him and his family as long as I wanted until my luck changed. He offered, in addition, to get me a visa I could use to work honestly, and thats how everything would have been if it werent for the same stars looking down on me from heaven, those same stars which, at that time, exactly three years ago, had formed a fateful conjunction over the destiny of those born under Capricorn. The Immigration agents who knocked on the door of that house didnt ask for me, but for my cousin, and, without giving him time to explain anything, they took him. It seems, based on what we found out later, they were deeply impressed by his artistic abilities in fabricating green cards, and they sent him back to Mexico so he wouldnt keep handing them out to the undocumented here. I came to Oregon because I also had a few acquaintances here and because it was no longer worth it, living in Los Angeles: my relatives house was always surrounded by the police, and there the stars seemed determined that I fight tooth and nail. Besides, the harvest had started here, and I could earn a few dollars picking apples. Ive told you Im an astrologer, but maybe I havent been thoroughly precise because the truth is never before had I earned a living in this way. Knowing how to consult the stars is just a gift God has given me, but Ive always worked in commerce, and, as I repeat, I cant complain about that because in Mexico I had amassed a regular fortune, and when my wife left me, I was already on my way to being a king. The bad thing is I cant tell you with money or without it, I always do what I want, as the song goes, because when the fruit harvest ended, I had to stand at the corner of Commercial and Rural in Salem, where, as you know, you must wait until someone comes along and offers you some work. There the day would generally pass without anyone con-
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sidering me eligible for grunt work. The years are heavy, you know, and thats why I saw myself obligated to always accept the first thing they offered me, and to work in anything, even if everything always went wrong for me. When I worked as a gardener, the garden was infested by ticks. And when I worked as a kitchen helper, the cook killed himself after reading a book about impossible loves. After that, I went to work in a Mexican restaurant whose owners offered Mexican dishes from six to nine in the evening, but from nine until midnight, they shifted gears, put on music from A Thousand and One Nights, and made me dress as an Arab waiter, but the restaurant had to close due to a misunderstanding. Remember the bomb a sect of Arabs put in a building in New York? Well, because of that, our clients stopped coming, and the owner started receiving threatening phone calls until he closed the business. Id best not tell you all the jobs Ive had. The point is they didnt last long; thats to say, they either fired me when they discovered I was illegal, or for that very reason they paid me a pittance. I was going through all this when a friend whose sign was Libra, which is the sign of good friends, decided to open my eyes. Salom, he told me, Youre never going to find a permanent job if you stay illegal. What youve got to do here is find a gringa to marry, make yourself a citizen of this country, and fix your papers once and for all. It was a good idea, and not just so I wouldnt keep feeling like a criminal without identification papers, but also so I could put an end to a loneliness I wasnt used to, and so I dealt the cards, and there it was, clear as day: my card was the king of hearts. Above my head was a blonde woman, and above hers a moon. I wondered if Moon was her name. But how did I find her? My friend showed me a bar where Hispanics got together, especially on paydays. As our people are very generous, the place had become well known for
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women who went there looking for someone to buy them a drink. With time, the bar had taken on another role: a center for arranging marriages. If youre interested, go to the bar Cielito Lindo, and there theyll explain what you need to do. It goes like this: you go sit at a special table where other candidates of love go, and you spend the night waiting for a lady to pick you as a partner. If everything goes well, you can end up married in no time and be lined up for a work permit or a green card. If it turns out otherwise, you split up without any bad feelings, and each one goes their own way. It seems easy, but its not really. My friend had made me see that one must dress himself up a bit to be chosen, and the race to make myself into an attractive man was filled with hurdles. My few free hours I spent looking for cheap clothes in secondhand stores, and I even went to a barber shop so they could color my gray hair, but my luck was so bad, the dye didnt take well to my hair, and I turned out a redhead. And the worst of it is, in spite of everythingand I would even get to the bar before the restthe hours and nights went by without my Princess Charming appearing. I like that man! Im taking this one! the women would shout, and when one would say, I want the one with the mustache! we all would turn at the same time, until, finally, the gringa would take one of my companions by the hand, and as she pulled him along, he would toss me a look that wished me luck. But nothing. Not one thing, you hear? Age tied to suffering and hard work conspired against my good appearance, and at the end of each night, I had to get up from the table and go to bed alone, and that made me feel like a retired prostitute. Until one night, I felt I was the object of a thorough, silent examination. The woman who observed me came closer and closer to the table, and I preferred not to look at her or move: if my luck was to fail me again . . . but it didnt. The woman
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came forward until she were beside me, and then she asked me to open my mouth. You have incredibly lovely teeth, she told me. I saw them from a distance, and I thought they had to be dentures. And she left. With her went my last hope for the night, and so I closed my eyes. But when she had most likely reached the door, she yelled, Do you want to come with me? and without waiting for an answer, she added, Ven aqu. And I followed her like one follows the sun or the moon, because its necessary, or because thats life, or just because. And the Tarot was fulfilled in this also, because, when I asked her name, she told me it was Luna, which in Spanish means moon, like the moon that had appeared when I dealt the cards. But you can call me Lu, she told me as she drove me to her home. Only the following morning did I realize she was a dumpy woman to whom years had not been kind to, but since I went to live with her in her apartment, that wasnt the time to raise objections, nor did I have any alternatives. Lu spoke a little bit of Spanish, because when she was young she had lived in Mexico, according to what she told me. She didnt tell me which city she had lived in, but I wasnt interested in asking her questions. What I wanted was for us to get married quickly, but I waited for her to propose. Notwithstanding, and in spite of the fact that our first month together was the only good one of our relationship, Lu didnt talk to me about wedding plans, and so I was the one who had to bring up the subject, but thats as far as I got. Shut up. I order you to not speak about that. Thats all men want. And she began pacing around the room muttering that Mexicans were dirty and they should leave the country. In the end, she seemed to think about it more calmly and she told me we must wait a year until we saw if we really understood each other and if we were meant for each other.
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You might ask me why I didnt leave her apartment that same night. Where would I go? To the room Id left behind a few weeks ago? To a hotel with my pockets empty? To Mexico, where the police were waiting to accuse me of drug trafficking? What would you do, if you were, like me, an undocumented Hispanic in the United States? I couldnt do any of those things because every month she forced me to hand over my pay check in exchange for I dont know what, maybe her company, maybe the hope of someday getting married. What I do know is she didnt work, and her mood varied quite a bit. One day, she told me I was the nicest thing that had happened to her in her life, and she would soon marry me. But one evening, arriving home from work, I found the apartment a complete disaster, and Lu was furious and seemed to have had some quarrel with someone who had been there just before me. Qu pasa? Whats wrong? I asked her, thinking some thieves had broken in, but the only answer I got was her screams that grew more and more strident, and her fingernails, which dug into my face as she screeched that all men are trash. I ducked into the bathroom to avoid the fight, but I didnt know that at that moment she was calling 911. A few minutes later, four huge police officers broke into the apartment and someone kicked in the bathroom door, and after that, I dont know what happened. One of the officers, twice my size, in height and width, lifted me up by the neck and said something I didnt understand. Lu, crying, probably told them I had attacked her. Thats what I understood from the gestures she made as she spoke, and I couldnt defend myself against the accusation because, as Ive already told you, the only thing I know how to say in English is Good morning, my queen. I dont want you to get tired of my story, so Ill keep it short. After spending a week in jail, I received a visit from Lu,
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who was very sorry and was ready to take me back home. A while later, I found out she had a romantic relationship on the side, and when she fought with the other guy, I was the scapegoat. I already know what youre going to say, but I repeat: what would you do if you were a Hispanic without documents in the United States? Ive told you I wont make it long. We got married two years after we met, and after she had put me in jail many times. Why did she make up her mind? For a simple reason that marked a change in my lifes fortunes: I dont know if Ive already told you that my father was a conjurer. In Guadalajara they called him The Fakir, and I learned a few magic tricks from him, which I used to practice in rare moments of leisure. It wasnt long before I started working in public, in front of small audiences of Mexicans who paid me for it and also begged me to read them their destinies. And soon, I started to earn such attractive sums that the prophecy for my sign was confirmed which said I would lose my fortune, but it would always return to my hands. And thats when Lu, now a loving little moon, told me I was the man she wanted for life and she no longer had any reason to go on deliberating, and she took me to the altar, which wasnt an altar but the office of a gringo judge who asked us if wed had time to think about the step we were taking. Imagine what would happen if we didnt get married now, Lu told me, and added, Maybe another woman would steal you, although she was sure that wouldnt happen because I had given her sufficient proof of my faithfulness and patience, although I dont really know how certain she was, because she started following me to most of the places where I performed, and sometimes she made me fire an assistant who she thought was good-looking. Thats when magic things started happening rapidly, perhaps because a fateful stellar conjunction was close at hand or maybe
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because there would be an eclipse soon. To carry out my role as a magician, Id gone to buy a second-hand smoking jacket at the Salvation Army, when I found a cane next to the coat. I told myself it could serve as a magic wand, and whats more, it looked oddly like the one my father had used, so I didnt hesitate to pay the two dollars they were asking for it, and indeed, since then it has served me in most of my performances. One of my favorite numbers consists of making Patti, a pretty gringa, who appears on stage dressed as a French queen, disappear. After talking with her, I pass the wand over her head, and the girl vanishes. A bit later, after saying the Lords Prayer backwards and pronouncing the magic words, Patti appears on the other side of the room, dressed in nothing but a skimpy bikini. But just last night, the censor got me. At the moment when I was chatting with my assistant about life in the invisible world, my wife Lu appeared on stage, looking furious. She pushed Patti to one side and stood inside the magic circle where the girl had been. Distinguished audience, she announced, a respectable magician always works alongside his lawfully wedded wife, and that is what Salom Navarrete, The Fakir of Guadalajara, is going to do now. And thats exactly what Im telling them happened, but nobody wants to believe me. I patiently accepted that Lu shoved my assistant aside, and I started doing the secret waves of the wand over her head. By the seventh wave, Lu had vanished. Everyone was puzzled, and if you want to know the truth, I was surprised too, because Id never explained the trick to Lu. For half an hour, the crowd was asking questions and congratulating me. Someone even commented that making slender Patti disappear could never have been as marvelous as sticking all two-hundred-and-sixty-five pounds of my wife into the
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void, into the black pocket of the universe, and many said theyd pay whatever I wanted to see the act again. A lady asked me if Lu was going to reappear among the crowd as scantily clad as Patti had been, but I couldnt reply because I didnt know, and because I was getting tired of waving the wand without my wife appearing, and it had now been more than an hour since her disappearance. Attention ladies and gentlemen, come and see how a distinguished lady enters and returns from the shadows of the universe! Thats what I yelled at the top of my voice, over and over again, until I realized it was all over. Thats when I remembered there had been a total lunar eclipse last night, and I knew my die had been cast. Lu had not reappeared, and it was as if shed gone to meet the void. The police arrived at midnight, and up till now theyve been asking me to plead guilty. Thats why its a good thing youre here to listen to me and translate for me and explain to them that all this is just a mistaken stellar conjunction or a simple error of the heavens. You tell them, because I cant even begin to tell my story: when I start speaking in English everyone laughs uncontrobally.
Final Page in the West

s we emerged from the Gloria Theater, Cayo Cabrejos proclaimed that the best movie in the whole history of the world was Flash Gordon and the Planet Mongo, and I insisted that Riders in the Sky, with Roy Rogers, was the best in the universe and the best of all time, and that space movies could never compare to ones about the Far West. The truth is neither of us had sufficient authority to make these kinds of affirmations, because we both had just barely turned nine, and my neighbor wasnt a jet pilot yet, and I hadnt even gone more than fifty miles beyond our town. The plot of Riders in the Sky takes place in a Western town called Corvallis, Oregon, where seven cowboys are mysteriously murdered without their deaths being avenged or the criminal being discovered. It was 1899, and Roy Rogers, the wandering hero who had arrived from Arizona singing, stopped his song, dismounted, hitched his horse to a post, left his pistols at the saloon door, asked for a glass of scotch, sat down near the piano, and started singing again. In a miraculous way, his song began to clear up the mystery. The first thing revealed, besides the extraordinary, were Rogers beautiful golden teeth, of which the four incisors stood out, having been made from gold bullets. After listening to a few falsettos, the camera panned away from the cowboys face and out over the surrounding landscape,
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with firs and mountains as far as the eye could see, and then up into the intensely blue sky where the seven dead riders were seen riding their horses on the clouds while Roy Rogers song revealed the name and appearance of the murderer. The bad guy showed up in the saloon at that moment. He was a mustached man with black hair who, upon being discovered, invited the young man to be killed with courage and reciprocity, which was respectfully and silently accepted. They fought in a clearing in the forest just outside Corvallis, and it was incredible. They faced each other and started shooting, but the well-aimed bullets collided in mid-air. Then the bandit leaped up and was seen shooting from the top of a very tall tree, but the shot aimed at Roy Rogers heart lost speed before reaching its target. At night, the seven dead riders came down from the clouds to our world to witness the fight, but one of the bad guys bullets wounded one of the ghosts, who was carried by his companions back up to heaven so he wouldnt die a second time. The sun rose and set several times, and the combatants kept at it tirelessly. The end comes when a bullet shot several days before returns from going around the world and buries itself in the bad guys heart. Then, Roy, the avenger, whistles toward the sky, and a white horse descends into the clearing in the forest. Its his, and, mounted on him, he says farewell to Corvallis, because heroes dont stick around to live in one place but are always traveling from the east to the west, and from there, eastward again. I had been recalling some of this since my arrival in Oregon, because seven years ago I came to work at the university here, and I bought a house in the closest town south of campus, which happens to be Corvallis. It seemed to me, I repeat, a happenstance that had nothing to do with the film seen in my childhood, since my reasons for choosing this town were twofold: first, the fact that in Monmouth, the seat of the university, no one can drink a glass of wine because they have a dry law in
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effect from the past century; and the other reason: the name of the town where I now live means, in Latin, heart of the valleyin other words, I have come here to live in the center of the world and perhaps also in the center of my own life. The moon in these skies is probably also planted in fir trees, like all space to the four horizons. The sky is another skyit looks more like the Atlantic Ocean, its so intensely blue, and the memories it brings, so slow. The four highways that flow into this town have come defying canyons, climbing mountains, and sometimes passing right through the trunks of thick redwoods. They are paths that seem designed especially for retracing our old steps. The land sinks as you leave Corvallis, and then the path rises, as if it would carry the traveler toward a southern sky. Five miles from town, a range of low mountains rises in the distance, and above the mountains a V of migrating geese hover forever at the same point in the sky. But, leaving the town and returning to our childhood, what did Cayo like most about his favorite movie? Perhaps the powers of Emperor Ming, who had made up his mind to destroy our planet with a green ray? Perhaps the beauty of Princess Charlene, whose throat was so white and translucent, it showed the red flow of a cup of wine? Or possibly the slow flight of dragons toward a stellar lagoon in the Mongo springtime? None of that. What attracted him was the way Flash Gordon, charged with saving Earth, had reached the surface of the enemy planet. It had been impossible to achieve in a ship, given that the fastest one, which flew at the speed of light, would have taken a thousand years to conquer the dark distance and outstrip the abysses of the universe. The solution had been to dematerialize the earthling hero and transmit him through radio waves toward the distant glow of Mongo, and in one of its forests the mans fragments came together again, just like thoughts and memory, reconstructing
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the savior of humankind, the valiant Gordon, who took a few minutes to put on a sky blue uniform before advancing toward the castle of the wicked Ming. My neighbor and I were both fascinated by the instant the hero entered the travel chamber. Once there, he sat in the dematerialization chair, took the control wheel, pressed the ignition button, and a thick blue color filled everything, brimmed over, invaded the theater and reached as far as our seats. In that instant, thousands of miniscule planets could be seen gravitating around the darkened room where Flash Gordon began crossing the cosmos. In that room, in the midst of tiny stars and life spilling into the infinite, Flashor perhaps just his imagelingered for one long, slow instant until all of him had vanished in our world and was being remade on distant Mongo, a thousand years later. That made me think that someday wed be able to travel, not just to a star within our horizons, but also to any time in the distant future. Maybe wed be able to fly from the day and year we lived in, an undetermined day in the 1950s, to that far-off year 2000, when all wonders would be possible. Cayo told me he wanted to be an interplanetary pilot, and that the joy of his life would be concentrated in the moment he crossed the regions of pinpoint stars and picked up Captain Flash Gordon. It seemed to me a very childish aspiration, since airplanes would have already gone out of style, and all wed have to do is change our state of consciousness to go from one space and time to another. In the year 2000, it will be known that time and space are only states of consciousness, I told him. I would rather to travel to the year 2000, I added. Or maybe, 1999, so I can see in the year 2000 someplace on our own planet where theres a vast plain and endless forests. There, Ill learn to come and go through time, and also to come every now and then to Pacasmayo to see a movie staring Roy Rogers and to talk with you when we were, are, or are again boys.
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The truth is I dont remember what Cayo replied because all of my memories of those days are flooded with green water. Moreover, I havent called to mind this conversation for more than forty years. I suppose my friend forgot it too, but something in him, or in destiny, has been working away to make our childhood dreams seem realized, since, after finishing high school, he joined the air force, piloted jets, and is now a friendly general who would also enjoy, as a game, returning to these curious memories. As for me, I havent thought of Roy Rogers and Flash Gordon in all my adult life. And I only mention them when I realize that I have lived on the highest hill in Corvallis for seven years. And that now, in May of 1999, from the window before me, I can spot the clearing in the forest where Roy Rogers fought the bandit. Although I am here, so high up, almost in the Oregon sky, the houses in the town cant be seen, as they are all stately Victorians, no more than two stories tall with an attic. Taller than they are realmore alive than the housesthe firs, maples, and cherry trees grow green. The firs cover the houses. The maples change colorgolden, blue, or indigodepending on the time of day and the light. The cherries in this month, after blooming in April, toss their pollen toward the four horizons, and life is floating in the air. Life sails north and south, west and east, up and down, into the past and the future, in the form of tiny stars, and its as if I were in the room where Flash Gordon flew toward the far-off planet Mongo. Then my eyes turn to the path that lays before the window. My gaze flies over the forests, into the permanent past, and I no longer know if I am in my childhood or if the time of longing has already come for me. Maybe all of this is, like I thought as a boy, just a state of consciousness. In the sky silent planets probably glow while dragons sail over a stellar lagoon. But that must be seen at night. At the
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moment, its still afternoon, and, as I peer intently from my window, a figure comes into focus; I see a man walking from the clearing in the forest, and he might suddenly whistle toward the sky, and perhaps a white horse, his horse, seems to descend toward Corvallis. They ride off toward what is furthest away, toward the west. Like when a song is sung in the darkness, and history is infinite.
The Invention of Paris
aris, as we know it today, was invented by my friend Juan Morillo Ganoza in Trujillo during a slow, exasperating winter in the seventies, which, apparently, was very constructive for him, abounding in labor. We cant praise or blame him for the results of his efforts, since he would probably reply with studied modesty, What are you congratulating me for? Its my job. Ive only met my obligations. I dont recall clearly, but it seems to me Morillo started with the Cathedral of Notre Dame and that it took him two nights to finish putting everything in orderthe towers, the great nave, the images of the apostles, the stained-glass windows, the tourists, the griffins and gargoyles that watch over the cathedralbut his biggest problem was where to place it. Obviously, it had to be at the heart of the city and overlook the Seine on both sides, but that meant putting it on an island, and he couldnt decide between the le de la Cit and the le de Saint Louis. In the end, I think he tossed a coin in the air and went with the first one. Serious and formal like every committed intellectual, he devised a work plan and placed it on the blackboard across from his old but swift Remington typewriter that would help him develop the proposed objects. After the great cathedral, he would go on to the outline of the buildings and museums, the
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invention of the gardens and cafs, the creation of the restaurants and lovers, the sketch of the painters and birds, the description of the police and public restrooms, and finally, the map of all the hotels and the train stations and rails that must run beneath the great metropolis. To keep all of this from turning to chaos and disaster, he came up with the idea to divide The Plan into nine avenues, namely: 1) from Orsay to St. Germain; 2) from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre; 3) from the Eiffel Tower to the Pont dAlma; 4) Montmartre; 5) Montparnasse; 6) The Faubourg StHonor; 7) The Grand Boulevards; 8) the islands and the Latin Quarter; 9) the Marais and the Bastille . . . It seems to me the entire work took him a little more than three months, and it meant a payment that was not inconsiderable for a university student in those daysalthough a little disproportionate to the magnitude of the enterprisethree hundred and fifty dollars and several sumptuous dinners at a Chinese restaurant in Trujillo. This payment was just a small portion of what the contractoras well call himof the job had received for executing it. A few months earlier, a sports reporter for the newspaper Norte, whose last name was Roca, had been awarded, by a European company that did work in Salaverry, the prize of a trip to the City of Light and a generous travel allowance. Of course his obligation in return consisted of writing a series of articles about the metropolis he had come to know, publishing them in his newspaper, and giving them to his benefactors for compilation in a book. Everything was going greatthe flight from Lima to Point-a-Pitre, crossing the Atlantic, and finally Orly and the obligatory visit to the Louvre Museum during the first day but then the expectably unexpected meeting with a young Frenchwoman freed him from the clutches of the implacable guides and brought him to know the shadows and the lights of a chambre de bonne on a septime tage which, together with
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a small bistro on the corner, would be his only panorama for five weeks. Tout le rest . . . would have to be imaginationliterature. But Roca wasnt exactly the rock upon which eternal churches are built, nor the kind a sculptor chisels to create a work of art. Yes, he was good for watching soccer games and for staring down referees with his stony look, but when it came to literature, he was also a rock, a block wall, and it seems to me his last name included walls, Roca Paredes. Although, truth be told, he wasnt a blockhead, because he had the extraordinary idea of sharing his dollars with Morillo and charging him with the responsibility for writing the book that, if we imagine he didnt even have a tourist guide, basically consisted of an invention of Paris. And so Juan Morillo Ganoza was the first committed writer I met; and a while later, in discussions about pure art or committed art, when I heard him mention The Conclusions of the Forum of Yanan and maintain that the artist had a responsibility, I think I understood at once what kind of responsibility he alluded to. The sources Juan used to draw up Paris were varied and quite unusual. I dont remember if the description of Paris at a glance is in The Man Who Laughs or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but one of the two novels made up the first stone, or rock, upon which he would rebuild the city the Gauls knew by the name of Lutetia. Its worth mentioning that the work in question was written before Baron Haussmann remodeled the metropolis and so, in Morillos Paris there are still side streets and outskirts Victor Hugo knew, but that Brigitte Bardot never got to see. His phenomenal imagination would more than make up for any deficiency. In a dream he had then, he saw our dear friend Teodoro Rivero-Aylln drinking absinthe with Pierre Loti and various accursed poets; then Juan, talking about local customs,
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wrote that it was the Frenchs daily drink. A waltz from Lima helped him complete the portrayal: In France there is a Paris and there they worship well the god they call Amour . . . It is the land of pleasure where woman reigns in all her splendor. In caf or lounge when the notes of a waltz are heard . . . there the Parisian is seen following the rhythm voluptuously. His friends then would be the victims of strange questions: What do you think should go on top of the Eiffel Tower? Do you think something could be built over its framework? he asked me once, and my extremely feeble imagination impeded my collaboration. That must be why the famous tower is as it is today, just steel and pyramidal shapes, giving the impression that it lacks something. A decade later, I would live in Paris for several years, on the rue Georges Mandel, which starts in Trocadero Plaza, and I would be neighbor to Edith Piaf and Catherine Deneuve, who I sometimes ran into during the bread-buying hourbut a strange fear always assailed me. Neither the plaza nor my street existed in Juan Morillos Paris, and that could signify my my nonexistence or the absolute absence of a reason for being. Elqui Burgos, Alfredo Pita, and Rodolfo Hinostroza perhaps instead of being the excellent authors they are, are just figments of my imagination, because the Morillan Paris erased from the map the Gare de Saint Lazare where they lived, and my Spanish friend Marisa Nuo became nothing more than an illusion when she moved from Amiens, where she resided, to a
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house near the Rodin museum, which, in the famous Trujillan book, has been thrown out and replaced by LHermitage, which I had always assumed to be in St. Petersburg. To protect Morillos honor, I must clarify that this castling of museums is due to a final correction made by Roca. In the United States, someone who writes on behalf of another is called a ghost writer, and its a perfectly legal line of work with a certain distinction to it, but cases like the one I rememberthe invention of a citydont come up every day. Moreover, as I choose a place to spend my vacation, Paris intimidates me when I think that a writer could erase it while I remain permanent, although that could also happen to other cities Ive lived in and loved, like Trujillo, San Francisco, Madrid . . . and that must be why an exchange of jokes with one of my best friends hides the spacious sadness of not being in one of them this afternoon. I live in the state of Oregon, in the Far West, whose actual existence some have questioned, the same way one hesitates over whether adolescence is real or an invention, and thats exactly what makes me remember that, back in the 60s, we saw a cowboy movie starring John Wayne. One day youre going to realize all this is just an illusion . . . Juan started saying as we left the theater. After that, I dont remember a thing.
Clouds and People
t happens to me all the time. All it takes is me getting on a plane for a story to approach me and beg me to tell it. A story is a character, and a character, in this case, is a passenger sitting next to me who, after making a few comments about the weather, will introduce himself and tell me the reason for his trip or the drama of his life. Listen, sir, my life has been nothing but agony since the woman I love simply said no, and I will listen to the rattle of maracas all of the first six hours of my trip to the United States. And the maracas will rattle away my dream of enjoying a refreshing nap. The last time I traveled, the exact same thing happened. Next to me, in the window seat, a gentleman, sixty years old, more or less, acknowledged me with a nod of his head. As we took off, he turned to observe the clouds passing by for half an hour or so. Splendid! I thought that, finally, Id come across a quiet guy, someone capable of keeping his secrets to himself and allowing his neighbor to take a nap. So I reclined the seat as far as it would go and went to put on a dark eye mask. I almost thought about thanking him for being so reserved, but I was getting ahead of myself. After the first half hour, the man pulled down the shade and turned to look at me. Two tears were slipping down his face. Oh no! The sad story was about to be revealed. I made as if to look the other way so as not to invade his privacy, but he was already invading mine.
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Can you believe were already crossing the border of our native land? Do you think youll come back sometime? Do you know what its like to say good-bye for good? Do you like listening to the duo Pimpinela? I feigned deafness to avoid responding to any of these questions because I know now that people ask them, not to listen to us, but rather so we will listen to their own answers. But the man seemed determined to make himself into a character in my story, and, in spite of my eyes staring into space like those of a philosopher or an aide-de-camp, he continued his speech unruffled and went on saying that yes, we had now crossed the border and that he would never cross it again. Meanwhile, I pretended to close my eyes and sleep, but my curiosity was stronger than my fatigue. When the stewardess got to our row, I asked for two glasses of whiskey and I handed one to my neighbor. Okay. You win. Ill listen to you. Tell me what you want to tell me. The story began four years ago in Lima. A young lawyer without an office talked with his wife about their economic problems and the possibility that a trip to the United States could open new doors for them. How do you feel about me going first? she said. Ive heard its easier for a woman to get a job babysitting or taking old people out for walks or day-trips. Ill go and stay six months or so, open the way, and you come afterwards. What do you think? The idea sounded excellent to him. When you get to New York, you can stay with my uncle, my fathers brother, whos lived there for twenty-five years. He and his wife wont have any problem welcoming you because theyve always invited me. The young wifelets call her Juanitaleaves for the Big Apple, and everything goes the way she thought it would. She is welcomed with great kindness and before the week is out,
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shes obtained a fake Social Security card for just eighty dollars. A few days later, she watches the kids of a nice, accommodating couple who pay her cash so she wont have problems with the tax system. They pay me almost two thousand dollars and I dont have any expenses. Two thousand dollars, Jorgito! If things keep going like this, youll be able to come sooner than we had thought, Juanita tells him in her weekly phone call. And she adds, Theres just one problem. Your uncles wife has left and asked for a divorce. Poor guy! Im going to invite him to a poetry reading in Spanish. Im going to try to distract him a little. Does that sound good, Jorgito? That sounds fine to Jorgito. But the second month, something strange starts to happen. The calls get fewer and farther between, and those precious cards she would send beforeTe extrao. I miss you, cario!no longer arrived in Lima. The third month there are no calls, and Jorge has to call, in spite of the phone companys rates. He doesnt find anyone, and he leaves a message on the machine, but no one returns his call. He tries several times, until one day, at an unusual hour, she picks up the phone. The explanation is simple: How could you think I would forget you, cario! What happened is I lost my planner where I had our address and phone number written. And now I have to go because your uncle is waiting for me at the door to go see a movie. Poor guy! Hes so sad! Jorge hangs up thinking that too much work is making his self-sacrificing wife a little amnesiac. But time goes on. Juanita and the uncle move and change their phone number, and all communication with Lima is suspended. I suppose that at the end of two years, the husband understands. After a while, the uncle, who is now Juanitas partner, takes a trip to Lima, and by accident, he runs into Jorgito at a family party. However, the dreaded confrontation turns out to be a very pleasant one.
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Imagine us meeting like this, Uncle. Of course I understand. Say hi to her for me, and if you two want to fix your situation, I wont get in the way. Tell Juanita to send me a proxy, or travel to Lima, to draw up the divorce papers. When the story reaches this point, the man pushes the shade up, and the window lets us see a splendid sky, filled with white, red, and yellow clouds. They walk silently through the firmament and tell us that to live is to watch things go by. They draw the faces of loved ones in the perpetual blue. Then they leave with our dreams and our hope, with our small dramas and with our eternal question about the meaning of all this. They are like us, unstable, but they are also eternal. They go off to Never Never Land and leave us without shelter, without stories. No, not without stories. The gentleman continues relating his. Jorgito surprised me. What an intelligent young man, and so modern! I told Juanita. I think it runs in the family. Perhaps it would be good for you to travel to Lima and arrange the divorce. Do it, Juanita, and Ill be waiting for you. And Juanita makes the trip. The next day, shes already calling him, Youre right. He has understood me completely, and Monday were going to sue for divorce. But this weekend, were going to go to Chaclacayo to reach an agreement about the land and the house and who will keep the dog. Ill call you to let you know when my return trip is. So you can pick me up, cario. The truth is, I dont know what happened after that. Two weeks went by, and since Juanita hadnt called me, I thought they hadnt been able to come to an agreement. But yes, they had come to an agreement. They stayed to live in Chaclacayo. And the uncle recently confirmed this, last week after a quick trip to Peru that he is returning from. So I offer him another whiskey to avoid witnessing the spectacle of a grown man crying. And I realize that stories chase me, and that Ill never be able to flee from my characters. The plane enters a gigantic cloud like the one we all live in, surrounded by stories.
Tango
m almost positive I met lvaro Cardoso in an old general store on Coln Street in Buenos Aires, but the memory can betray us, so I prefer to omit exact dates or specific references. Moreover, I fear getting a letter from him discrediting my memory and giving me an appointment to clear things up, man to man, because I must confess that, from the very first, this guy has seemed to me a ruffian or a troublemaker. He called himself lvaro Cardoso, but that wasnt exactly his name. I believe Cargoso was his true name, and although its the homonym of an excellent Brazilian writer, he wasnt Brazilian, but Peruvian, and he didnt want to be either; he wanted to be Argentine. I should clarify here that in my generation, those among us who wrote plays wanted to be Argentine, and from time to time, they spoke in the Buenos Aires slang theyd read in Borges or heard from Porcel. Not Cardoso. To make the education of his Argentine soul complete, he had traveled by train to Buenos Aires; he walked without moving his right arm as if he were hiding a rancorous dagger under his belt; he guzzled mat; he wore a fedora tilted like Gardels; he sobbed as he listened to milongas; and he lived a systematically passionate love. Moreover, he wandered around Palermo inconsolable and went to appointments with intellectuals in a caf between Viamonte and Florida, and at the end of the evening, as lonely and unlucky as Martn Fierro, he
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sought refuge in an old general store on Coln Street where those who have suffered a loss of faith go. That was not my case. If you will allow me an additional personal confession, I still hadnt lost my faith when I arrived at the old department store. In reality, I found myself in Buenos Aires for the presentation of my book, Felipes Battle, which had been put out by the publishing house Losada, and I was wandering about the streets of the big city as a tourist. I think I entered the old department store, by chance or by mistake, perhaps looking for cashmere sweaters, and I ran into the ruffian, who smiled at mewhich was odd, given the spirits he was inand invited me to his table. I met you in Peru, he told me. He added, At that time, I believe I called myself Jorge Herrera, or something like that. Pseudonyms are obligatory, you know, among those who work in theater or who have dealings with the law. But now you must call me lvaro Cardoso. I expect you to recognize me as lvaro Cardoso and accept a drink of manzanilla from me. I realized I had no alternative and that I must postpone my souvenir shopping for another day, and as we savored the drink, lvaro, as is obligatory in these stories, tilted the brim of his fedora even lower to confide in me that the name of the woman he loved was Milagros de Diego, and that she was an actress of Spanish descent. They had met each other in Trujillo, Peru, where she gave acting classes and he wrote works of a certain dramatic consistency. At that time, she was on vacation in her native country, and he had accompanied her to meet the people who could someday be his in-laws. Good people, you know. The old man and me hit it off immediately, and we drank a lot of wine. While we drank, he told me he was delighted his girl had met a guy like me. And you know what he said to me? He said, Che, the girls a little difficult, but shes good. Che, love hershes a good girl. Che, querla.
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That happened in the seventies. I saw lvaro, or perhaps Jorge, Cardoso again last night at a grill in Miami. It had to have been him, although by now he would have shaved off the dispensable beard that accompanied him in his bohemian days, and his soul would be more at ease inside the abundant body of an Argentine steak enthusiast. He recognized me too and came over to my table to say hello. The restaurant was called Che Querla, and Don Juan Carlos, the owner, was none other than my friend Cardoso stuffed inside a new name or perhaps a different incarnation. Across from an enormous poster of Gardel stood a player piano. The waiters, two dark-skinned men from Havanafrom Havana, manwere dressed like gauchos and spoke in Buenos Aires slang from time to time. I had to accept him at my table and accept his business card: Juan Carlos CardosoChe Querla Bar & Grill. I had no need to ask about the motive behind the name change given that the majority of Argentine men have that name. You know, I became a citizen of Argentina . . . But the theater didnt give me enough to live on. Ive lived in Miami for a decade, and somehow or other, I get by in business, he told me, gesturing with his right hand, all his fingers clenched. Clearly, stories chase me, and this was not an exception. When I tried to say good-bye, after finishing the bottle of wine, I had the bad idea of asking him how Doa Milagros was . . . Had she continued with her promising career on stage? Had they gotten married in Buenos Aires? How many children did they have? I recognize it was a terrible idea. The now corpulent exdramatist started getting smaller and smaller. Fat tears leaked out and two bottles of an excellent Rioja appeared to accompany the confidences that now flowed. The romance had been cut short in Peru a year after he returned from Buenos Aires. She continued teaching theater
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in Trujillo while I worked in a high school in the provinces, and I saw her on the weekends. On one of these visits, he noticed the girl was a little changed. Che, lvaro, you used to tell me the gringos from the Peace Corps were CIA agents, but I think youre mistaken. Che, lvaro, not all gringos are bad. And weeks later, Che, lvaro, I think weve come to a crisis in our relationship, a conflict, and . . . maybe . . . it might be better if we didnt see each other for a year . . . You know, I was bested by a gringo . . . some Bill guy. Like all gringos named Bill, this one was six feet tall and very nice. Above all, he didnt like conflicts. He kindly won the girls heart and a while later married her. As for the spiteful lvaro, some time later he traveled to Buenos Aires to give himself completely to the theater and to make of his heartrending story some extraordinary drama, but he never managed to finish it. Instead, he got into buying and selling meats and the bar-and-grill business that would end up bringing him to the United States. Last night, as the waiters cleaned the last tables and went back to being Cubans, Juan Carlos kept on telling his story: That same night, this Bill guy showed up at my house. He said Milagros had told him a lot about me, that there was no reason for us to be angry, and that he was dying to be my friend. He brought with him two irresistible arguments: a Carlos Gardel record and two bottles of whiskey. We drank late into the night. I liked the gringo, even if he was a CIA agent. While we drank, I told him I was delighted the girl had met a spy like him. And you know what I told him? I told him, Che, the girls a little difficult, but shes good. Che, love hershes a good girl. Che, querla.
American Dreams
hen I realized old Patrick had personally prepared the invitations to his funeral, I didnt hesitate to attend, because I knew he had spent the last ten years paying attention to the smallest details of the great event, and besides, it has never seemed right to me to snub the deceased. One could tell the cards had various publication dates, but the names of those invited had been written a short time ago in that calligraphy so exquisite, so like him, and so typical of people who learned to write at the beginning of the century. On my card, under the printed words, he had added in his own handwriting, Im sure youll come to San Francisco. Your curiosity will get the best of you, Eddy. And he was not mistaken. His personality had always been for me an unsolvable mystery that I dont know Ill ever decipher. And this mystery that he loved cultivating had made me suppose, at times, that he was a CIA agent, and other times, a member of the KGB; although I had also believed him to be an Irish terrorist or, perhaps, a Russian scientist passed to the enemy and obliged to use a different identity. With time, I rejected, one by one, each of these possibilities. But I never knew at what point his stories ceased being true and edged into fables. The Patrick I met in the late eighties was, or pretended to be, a gringo communist, eighty-something, who cultivated his memory of having fought against fascism in the Lincoln
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Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, which he recounted in stories whose dates and characters changed suspiciously in each version. Perhaps he was now close to ninety, but the old man didnt seem made for Death, because, when she came to take him away, she would have to bear the excessive weight of his many vast and vehement dreams. One day as I was leaving a Berkeley caf we both frequented, Id heard him whistle The International, and at first I had the feeling that, in spite of his age, he was a CIA man in search of the unwary who would whistle the last verse and ask him, What are you doing here, comrade? What are you doing here, comrade? He was the one who asked me, in flawless Spanish, and that instilled in me the certainty that I found myself before a well-trained agent charged with hunting foreign communists in the turbulent and suspicious California university. Back then, this was still possible because the Berlin Wall hadnt fallen yet, and the Cold War had not officially ended. Vamos, hombre. Come on, man. In this case, the word comrade has no political connotation. If youre not communist, dont worry, because some day you will be, but meanwhile we can be friends. I decided to humor him, although I didnt understand what interest the Secret Service of the most powerful nation in the world could possibly have in a university professor whose past was easy to find out about without resorting to the sophisticated means of modern espionage. And yet, despite my reluctance, a few hours later we were still talking in the caf on Telegraph Avenue on the edge of campus. Patrick spoke about his favorite topic, the war in Spain, and in his animated description, as his memories mingled with songs from the war, the battle of Teruel didnt end, al Puente de los Franceses . . . nobody crossed the Bridge of the French, . . . no lo pasaba nadie mare mare mare . . . !; the
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Moors brought by Franco drowned in the sea . . . se ahogaban en el mar; the Italian flags sank into the bridges . . . en los puentes se hundan . . . ; and Our Lady of the Pillar, . . . la queran hacer fascista . . . who they tried to make fascist, declared herself a militante comunista. And Patrick, the supposed hero of the story he told, escaped unscathed in all the battles, asked for a glass of wine, and clapped his hands on the table saying mare, mare, mare, go on, sing it now! I think in this moment, my suspicions that the gringo was a CIA agent were swept away, but I never did believe the story that he had fought in Spain. Anyway, I justified his lie, thinking that in remoteness and loneliness, people invent pasts that end up being as true and as much theirs as their own real actions. Besides, whether he be a secret agent or a volunteer in the Lincoln Brigade, it didnt matter. Whoever he was or wherever hed been, old Patrick offered me a fascinating friendship which I accepted from the first moment, and a few weeks later I was an obligatory member of a circle he gathered in a beatnik caf, between Columbus Avenue and Jack Kerouac Street in San Francisco. The most regular members were an Anti-Castro Cuban, a Colombian Catholic priest, an American feminist, an Argentine spiritualist, and a Brazilian linguist who promoted Esperanto. We met Thursdays, and although it sometimes seemed to me we all looked at each other with a certain distrust, it was obvious we came together because of the gringo Patricks irresistible friendliness. Thats why, last night, as the plane was gliding down over San Francisco, I was delighted at the prospect of seeing these people again, people I hadnt spoken to for seven years, since leaving California, and I was completely sure that now I would discover Patricks true identity. As I emerged from the tunnel that connected the plane to the airport, I met Santiago, the Cuban, who was standing there dressed like a tropical dandy
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from the nineteenth century. Even though the vest didnt fit him, he looked inch for inch like hed been taken from a daguerreotype, and it made me think Jos Mart himself had come to welcome me. Of course, Patrick wasnt named Patrick, and Santiago is not necessarily Santiago, but Im talking about them that way out of respect for their desire to remain anonymous and perhaps do some undercover work, or to be dreamers and live the wonder of their own dreams. The gringo was the older of the two, maybe by ten or fifteen years; he was the old one. Because of his Spanish roots and solemn gestures, Santiago was the ancient one. I can imagine how you feel. Santiago put his arm around my shoulders and led me to his car, and as we advanced toward the city, his conversation constantly mixed the architectural advances of the Bay Area with our friends final moments. The doctor told him a few months ago, and since then he hasnt stopped making preparations: the invitations, the background music, the order of the speakers at the cemetery . . . hes even asked America to come from Madrid for the burial, and she has accepted. Of course, you know who America is, dont you? Of course I knew, but I couldnt reply that I didnt believe in her existence. Over the course of our friendship, Patrick had usually rounded off his stories of the war in Spain with the name of a girl from the Alcarria with jet black hair and lips as red as hell who had accompanied him in his wartime adventures until the ill-fated day when the International Brigade had to leave Spain. For love of him, she had changed her name, which was Marisa, to Amrica, and this was the pseudonym she would use in the clandestine battle against the Nazis in occupied France. Once peace came, they wrote each other a few letters. They would never see each other again in this life. The truth is, Amrica seemed to me to be a literary artifice
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in Patricks supposed Spanish stories, or a sign of his addiction to Hemingway. Of course, if she showed up at the funeral, her presence would have to confirm all the old Bolsheviks fantasies, but I considered that possibility as remote as the possibility of the proletarian insurrection my friend had never tired of prophesying. If youre still not a communist, dont worry, he repeated, someday you will have to be one. And that, according to the gringo, would happen when the Red Brigade, holders of power in the United States, began calling on all honest people, including the petit bourgeois intellectuals like you, because we are going to need all of you to transform this country. In the future socialist administration, he had offered us each positions that we accepted in silence so as to not scare away his dreams. Only the Colombian priest irrevocably declined the office of vicar in the future Popular Church of San Francisco, but I believe we all, including the Cuban, pretended out of delight in Patricks stories or out of respect for the aging of a man in whom dreams didnt age. As for me, I pretended to accept the future responsibility of Commissioner of Culture of California so the old man wouldnt feel slighted, but every now and then I presented him with political problems to bring him back to reality, like when I told him that the Red America he announced was perhaps going to be a very lonely nation, given that Gorbachevs Soviet Union was taking steps toward capitalism. Gorbachev is the greatest revolutionary of this century, he responded, and besides, perestroika and glasnost are maneuvers to keep the capitalists from suspecting that its their own system thats collapsing. The night the Wall fell, I found the old man sitting in his living room in front of the TV, lying back in a recliner he hadnt stirred from in twenty-four hours, and I thought he was going to die of sorrow, but his face said nothing, while, there on the
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screen, the multitude toasted with beer the unification of Germany and the destruction of communism. I watched him for an hour like that, without daring to ask his opinion, because I sensed he was crying, and he was. He was crying, and he turned to me with shining eyes, like the eyes of someone who is seeing the end of the world, How we have fooled them! . . . Now we are going to join both Germanies in one fist. And a short time later, when the regimes of Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and the USSR itself crumbled, Patrick made no comment, but Christmas Day when the Ceaucescus were executed, he let drop the phrase hed been preparing the whole time: Gentlemen, socialism has fallen. Now communism begins. e always remembered you, and the same day the doctor gave him the news that he was going to die, as soon as he knew, he started writing the invitations, and believe me, the first one he invited was you. He always said you would write our true story. He said it was your mission, and it is. But what do you think about this new bridge? It wasnt here when you left. Progress never ceases in this country. Whereas in my poor Cuba . . . Of course, youve heard the latest news, havent you? Stuffed inside a black three-piece suit with frock coat, cane, and a white rose in the buttonhole, Santiago didnt look much like the member of our circle that I remembered. He and Patrick dressed in ardent battle clothes all the time. To boots and commando pants or blue jeans, they added, in both cases, an old dress coat that evoked a certain military past, even though the Cuban had been a melancholy notary from Havana and had come to the United States peacefully, with his wife and two sons, during the first waves of immigration. The excellent relationship between the two old men was also difficult to understand, given that each sustained opposite
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points of view. Notwithstanding, when I saw them together, they seemed to refute the axiom that parallel paths never come together. Now there are two parallel paths that take us to the city. Well take the slower one that offers better scenery. As he drove along the highway to the great metropolis, the Cubans gestures made me remember the only time he came late to the circle and received a reprimanding glance from the gringo that didnt allow for inaccuracies and that had imposed a sort of party discipline upon what was supposedly an informal gathering in a caf. The news I bring you is important. Im late because Ive been in contact with the bases on the island for several hours by underground radio, but I have the honor of announcing to you that the tyranny will fall. Its just a matter of days, maybe weeks. I cant tell you more. Youll understand . . . But days, weeks, and months passed, and Santiago explained that theyd had to postpone the invasion to avoid heightening international tensions or perhaps through mediation from the Pope, who wanted everything to be resolved peacefully. That man is a saint. We have had to yield to his appeals. But weve given ourselves a deadline. One night after the circle, Santiago invited me to his house because, You know, Caridad, my wife, loves you like a son. And there in his living room, beneath an enormous painting of Our Lady of Charity and after many mojitos, he begged me to keep a secret. I know you dont necessarily share my point of view, but I also know you arent an informer. And then, looking at me with shining eyes, he had spoken softly, so softly he had to repeat the secret several times: he was the leader of The White Rose, a revolutionary organization of Cuban exiles, and they had just decided that when the great moment came, he was going to replace Fidel Castro in the government of the island.
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The bases have asked me to do it, and weve had our government plan ready for years now. The so-called bases were dispersed all over the United States. They were, most likely, loving grandparents and happy retirees, but they held periodic meetings in Miami to draw up military plans for the imminent invasion, and in one of these meetings they had designated the replacement. They had to throw out Arredondo because hes very old now. I was chosen by popular acclaim. Due to the nature of the news, I couldnt ask him for details, and besides, I was uncomfortable with being the depository for a secret of such transcendence, so I tried changing the subject and asked him to update me on his two sons living in Miami. Work, business, success, everything has made the boys a little forgetful about the fight against tyranny. Carlitos, the oldest, has even insinuated that the insurrection and its politics belong to past generations, but he wont always think that way. One day, he and his brother will come around because it runs in their veins. antiago has running through his veins a love for combat, and hes like his ancestors, like all the Spaniards I met in the war who fought until they had no shadow, commented Patrick when I asked him to explain to me his relationship with a person so far removed from his own ideas. We are friends because we are both honest and we know how to respect each other, but this is not just friendship; it is also a strategic alliance. When we communists come to power in the United States, we will want to have a good relationship with whoever is at that time governing Cuba. On long walks around the San Francisco Bay, the two old men had made many mutual concessions. They were in agree-
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ment that The White Rose would respect Fidel Castros life; they would only exile him. On the other hand, the United States Socialists would not intervene in the affairs of the neighboring island, and both nations would work on a few joint economic projects. Santiago insisted on the freedom to exercise religious belief, until he was convinced that this right would be completely protected. In secret, he confided in me that Patrick was the son of an Irish woman and that, although he didnt profess any particular religious belief, he got along best with Catholics, and he usually went to church after the mass, during the social hour, to stuff himself with donuts, which were his favorite delicacy. What fascinated me most about these two friends were Patricks amazing battles in Spain, and Santiagos conspiratorial deeds, but I went to the circle and stayed there until the moment when, beyond that, they discussed the destiny of the world. On one of those occasions, Miln Cepeda, the Brazilian linguist, invited us to toast Esperanto with champagne, as both Patrick and Santiago had accepted it as the official language of the future United Nations. The gringo had asked us for suggestions of whose face should appear on the future twenty-dollar bill. We need to break with tradition and put the picture of a young, popular man, maybe a movie star, he said as we Latin Americans kept quiet, not wanting to meddle in things that are none of our business. But a week later, he let us know what he had decided. I think itll be Warren Beatty, for his role in the movie Reds. That was when the polemic started that could have put an end to the life of our circle. Maureen Dolan, a feminist sociologist, complained bitterly that, for such transcendental projects, only men are considered. If we are following the criteria of looking for movie stars, I think, given her progressive politics, it has to be Jane Fonda.
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The lady offered Gender Studies classes at Berkeley and had been the author of a proposal to change the name of the city. Berkeley was white, and a man besides. It would be better to call it Sister City. Finally, in what was a hard criticism of our circle, she said she didnt have much respect for circles where there are no people of color and only the two traditional sexes were represented. Happily, it didnt come to blows. Patrick consented that the matter be discussed once his comrades were in power, but he assured us he had a surprise that would please Maureen, too. Slowly, he opened a sketchbook that contained the final drawing of the future first-class postage stamp. It was a dancer drawn in full-length. She had jet-black hair and lips as red as hell. She waved a fan in her hand. Perhaps shed been dancing flamenco. Perhaps shed been dancing her whole life. Dance is the expression of class struggles, and she herself is the personification of proletariat internationalism. She is the beauty of future times. She has the same name that many give to this country. She is the revolutionary woman. She is Amrica. he funeral is tomorrow, but I want you to come by my house tonight, in a couple of hours, that is, for some drinks, Santiago told me as he dropped me off at the hotel. There wont be a lot of us. It will be a petit comit meeting, you see . . . Besides, youll have the opportunity to meet Doa Amrica, whos staying with us and is getting along great with my wife. Santiago had hit the nail on the head. Deliberately, he saved the great mystery for last and obliged me to wait out the two most anxious hours of my life. If Doa Amrica really existed, then Patrick was certainly a hero in the Battle of Teruel and had fought alongside Commander Lobo in the Lincoln
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Brigade. Everythingand included within everything, the future of the United States and that of Cuba, the university of Esperanto and the agreements between the two old mentook on a new dimension, perhaps a certain shade of reality. I arrived early and was received by my hosts with open arms, a few sprigs of mint on the mojitos served on the coffee table, and two enormous photo albums. Youve lost almost seven years, Doa Caridad told me. Now youre going to meet my grandkids, and youll see their naughty antics in Miami in these photos. Santiago, in turn, explained that their Spanish guest wouldnt be much longer; she had gone out for the evening to visit a few friends. Friends? How odd! I though she had never been here before. I thought it, but I didnt go so far as to say it. Maybe I contained myself so I wouldnt spoil their fun with unjustified doubts, and after two hours, when the second bottle of nostalgic rum was being opened, the awaited one made her appearance. Incredible! She was the lady from the stamp, the dancer who emerged from a Spain of the past and whose make-up made her presumable eighty years indecipherable. Doa Amrica was more Spanish than Spanish women usually are. Maybe the Spanish were more Spanish sixty years ago, I thought, and it was hard for me to stand and greet her, not so much due to the mojitos as to the feeling that I was entering a book and that, from this moment on, with the exception of me, who had become fiction, everything started to be terribly real. Her enormous earrings performed a disturbing balancing act as she walked. Her dance shoes came toward me. She greeted me condescendingly, but with some interest. You are the writer, the one who is going to write the history. Patrick has told me a lot about you. When? I wanted to ask, but I didnt. He told me you are a true promise for BrazilI mean Peru. She corrected herself again when she called me a linguist of
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note and a renowned playwright, and then I went on to be an avant-garde journalist and chronicler of the revolution. I liked her, even though it seemed to me Id seen her before in a certain illustration in a Washington Irving book or in some Hollywood version of Zorro. Maybe she seemed too literary with her black hair gathered to the side with an ornamental comb and her eyes in which glowed the brilliance of some old black star. For a good while, the only visible part of her were her fingers, where a dozen rings danced, and her hands, which looked like theyd never been still. Perhaps they used to be good for rattling a tambourine, clacking castanets, or waving a fan. Now, they were constantly swishing the glass of whiskey she had preferred over mojitos. I dont know why, but she told me, This is where the true story starts. From her hands, I returned to the comb that was scandalously huge and real. Until then, I had only seen combs like that in descriptions of traditional Spanish women, and I had believed that those combs, together with those Spanish women, were a gringo invention. Maybe I spent too much time observing the comb. You are surprised at the blackness of my hair. Of course, dye is the answer, but in the good old days, when I met the gringo, it was jet black. It occurred to me to ask her to tell us an anecdote from her work in the insurrection, or perhaps about the time when she and the gringo had gone into a prison camp disguised to rescue a Catalonian leader. This is where the true story starts, I told myself as Doa Amrica clutched another glass of whiskey and half closed her eyes to recall her revolutionary adventures, but suddenly she turned her eyes to Santiago as if she were asking his permission, or perhaps his help. I dont believe this is a good time for her to remember those storiesthe journey from Madrid, the intense emotions,
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seeing the gringo again, but dead, the violence of the memoriesno, really, I suggest we speak about other things, the old Cuban said. Then it was his turn to tell how he had fled Cuba almost forty years ago. No, it hadnt been by sea. Nonsense! That was easy compared to the things hed had to go through. First, he had tried to pull off a coup dtat against Fidel Castro, but the coup had failed in the last minute because of an informer. Then he became the most wanted man in Cuba, and the one who had used the most disguises, until finally hed gotten on an official plane, passing himself off as a Russian ambassador. It seemed to me this version was a little changed, but I supposed that Santiago might have slipped on and off the island many times undetected. Besides, we were all tipsy by now, and the drinks let us know that the present was more important than memories, even if they were more dense, and perhaps more pliant. Im definitely putting on some flamenco. The deceased loved it. The woman from the stamp went over to the CD player and put in a CD she carried in her bag, and I thought she was just going to listen to it. But she had something else in mind. Halfway back to the sofa, she stopped. Then she froze with her head thrown back and palms of her hands raised. When the music surged out, she waited for it like a bullfighter waits for the wild beast, and thats when she truly started to be herself, to reclaim her body, perhaps. When theres music, a dancer is the only real person, I told myself and thought again, Heres where the true story starts. A dancer is more than blood and memories. Sometimes she is only eyes, I thought as the old woman conquered the music and became a furious movement of feet. A dancer is the only person whose existence we can be completely sure about, I thought again.
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From one piece of flamenco she went on to another as she explained the mysterious history of this dance and called for another glass. Now, she was completely herself, perhaps more than she had ever been in her life, and I had the impression that her Spanish accent had changed. It was shifting from Madrid into a Spanish with a tropical rhythm, maybe Cuban. Come here, boy, she told me when shed finished regaining her body. Did you know that flamenco and Cuban dance have a lot in common? I didnt know anything at that moment: I only knew to look for her in the Cuban dance she was now starting and to look for her shadow, which every now and then got left behind, and to pick it up for her as I picked up her comb here, and there, the red scarf she wore over her head the way gypsies are supposed to do. Finally, her little address book that contained her supposed calling cards fell to the ground, and I decided to keep one of them. I stuck it in my coat, and continued witnessing the transformation of the revolutionary lady into flamenco dancer and then salsa and merengue dancer. Finally, she was speaking nothing but Cuban Spanish and shouting out to Santiago as if theyd known each other forever. The music rocked me like my mother did when I was a baby, and that must be why I started to fall asleep. In my dream, Patrick, Santiago, Amrica and two black women took turns singing, The soaps run out . . . What are we going to do? . . . I gotta little hip wiggle to wash the clothes . . . ! Then I seemed to hear an argument about professional fees. Here or in Cuba, a professional artist should be well-paid, it seemed Doa Amrica was saying, but the black women kept interrupting, I gotta little hip wiggle to wash the clothes . . . ! Sleep tight! You dont need to get up early because the burial will be in the afternoon, Santiago would tell me later when a taxi came to get me, and then he would add, But you must be well because you need to write the true story. That is your assignment.
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I sat down to write it the following morning before I left the hotel, but when I tried to find a paper on which Id jotted down a few ideas, a card fell to the floor. It was Amricas, and it said, Mara del Rosario: The Cuban Lady of Dance, Academy of Flamenco and Cuban Dance. An address in Miami followed. I took a taxi and headed toward the cemetery where, for me, the true story begins. The rest of this memory has no words, just images like those that usually happen in dreams. I see myself walking through a lovely cemetery in San Francisco. I see Doa Amrica, Santiago, and myself wearing severe, dark clothes. And though she might try to hide it, she looks like she has cried her whole life, and a few friends are holding her up. I dont remember anything about the funeral itself. In my memory, perhaps instead of being cremated, Patrick vanishes. Afterwards, I see the Cuban giving a speech, followed by Miln, who, perhaps, speaks in Esperanto. Finally, perhaps Santiago tells the audience that Im going to speak and that they must believe me, and he winks at me, and I look into Doa Amricas eyes, and I start to say something that is probably the true story of this whole time, while the millennium ends, and the sun perhaps disappears from the universe, and Patricks ashes are scattered by the wind over the roundness of the world and what is left of time.
Seven Nights in California
n the eve of Corpus Christi, Leonor dreamed she was leaping over fences as a golden bull chased her, and the next morning she was very happy because this meant she would make it across the border of the United States. By an odd chance, that night her husband had the same dream, with the small difference that he was the bull. But anyway, he felt happy because all night he listened ceaselessly to the spectators praising his regal appearance, golden back, and gigantic horns. Seven nights the couple spent in these strange shared dreams, but neither ever knew they shared them, because they hadnt spoken for ten years. It had been that same length of time since she had first asked for a divorce, but Leonidas, furious, had refused to sign the divorce agreement, due to, as he explained to her, his deep religious convictions and the love he professed for his children, all of which had not kept him from locking mother and daughter in with a padlock every time he traveled; or from screaming at Leonor that she was a whore when she insisted on the business of a divorce; or from mortgaging the house that had been his wifes own propertyan inheritance from her parentsbefore he had forged her signature; or from shouting at her that decent women dont work, and, notwithstanding, keeping the money from workers compensation for himself when she had to quit; or from showing
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her in public as his lawful wife, dressed in angora, and then going around boasting that there was plenty of him for other royal concubines and that all women trembled before him because Guadalajara is a plain, and Mexico City a lake, and Ill eat this prickly pear even if I prick my hand; or from being the intimate friend of a few odd men who preferred their own kind to women; or from walking around saying, in supposedly exclusive bars, brothels and clubs, that he had done her a favor by marrying her because the Montes de Ocas gave nobility and excellent blood to a Garcia and improved her race, even if Leonor spent her evenings living out a bolero in which a woman proclaims she doesnt want to be a princess or a slave; she just wants to be a woman. The morning of Corpus, they didnt talk to each other, not just because they never spoke, but also because she wasnt there to share the shared breakfast, or to give him her body two hours before, at six in the morning, because it just so happened that an hour before, she had hidden herself in one of her dreams, and she had fled, according to some, on a dream train, and according to others, on a fast bus, and had arrived in lands that, even if the husband didnt know it, were already close to the border. That morning, Leonidas got up a little late because he hadnt wanted to wake from the lovely dream in which he was a bull and the people shouted ol! ol! And while he pleased himself thanking the audience, his wife, also in dreams, reached Tijuana, and overcame the last hurdle in her path to the United States. When Leonor set foot on American soil, Leonidas opened his eyes, smiling and happy that hed dreamed about people applauding him ecstaticallyhim with his bullfighter costume and ol, ol!
l, ol, and ol, Leonidas heard a choir of angels sing to him from heaven as soon as he realized Leonor had
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disappeared, and in spite of the heavenly praises, he was livid and told himself that their boy hadnt been effective enough to impede the long-announced flight. He had taught him to say, Mommy, if you leave Daddy, Ill kill myself, but even despite this, she had taken their grown daughter, and had gone far away, with many hundreds of miles of highway between them, and many more dreams. Anyway, Leonidas slung his dreams over his shoulder, loaded his Smith & Wesson, stuck his marriage certificate and a wad of green bills in his pocket, and filled a small chest with jewels. The dreams would help him locate her; the marriage certificate would be used to prove his ownership of the woman who fled from him; the dollars were meant for compensating the police who would help him capture his legal property; the jewelry box went with him to tell her yes, my queen, yes, now everything is going to be fine between us; and the pistol would be handy for making everyone see that it would be best not to find themselves alone with him, because, true to his reputation, he was a bad man, bad and hot-blooded, who cant be bothered with the whole story. Tongues wag, saying that, the night before he left to look for her, Leonidas got drunk like a brave man and, out of sheer rage, started shooting: he shot at the willow because it had been the pale fugitives only friend and confidant; he shot at the dog because it didnt bark the instant she packed her bags; he shot at the moon for putting romantic ideas in her head; he shot at the sky where the constellation Scorpio sailed, because thats where forbidden loves usually hide; he shot toward the prow of the universe because, as everyone knows, the universe travels at the speed of light and never stops moving, and so the bullet would travel light after light, century after century, until it plunged, well-aimed, into the heart of the man who was stealing the heart of his lawfully wedded wifeif there was one and he stopped shooting because he needed to save the bullets for the guy who was accompanying herif there was one, he
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repeated to himself. But no, that wasnt possible, because, in the first place, his wife was a decent woman, and after knowing him as a man, she wouldnt have been able to relish another; and in the second place, he had touched his forehead many times without finding any sign that anything was going to sprout there; and again in the first place, because she, with forty-two years on her shoulders, wouldnt be able to find another heartthrob besides menopause or the heroes in the novels she hid in her nightstand that he should have burned, yes sir. But, one afternoon, he had the good sense to look over them when she wasnt there, and all he found was silliness, the story of an impossible love revived after thirty years when the protagonists husband diesHa! That would be awhile. Like she was she going to have the hots for one of those paper men when she had the real man right in front of her, and whats more, shed had him for ten years without seeing anyone more interesting than him, once, he took her to live on his ranch, where there were no other men besides those brown Indians, and the only tall, white, good-looking man of good familythe Montes de Ocas, with roots in Mexico, Peru, and Spainis me. But what desire could she have for any man, if she hadnt known how to be a female for the real man whod sheltered her so long, and if it had been ten years now with her not even responding to a kiss on the lips, and, even worse, if she flopped down on the bed like a just-lassoed cow, without moving or resisting, without saying youre so delicious to a man who knew how macho he was. No, it wasnt feminine wiles, or another man that had impelled her to run away; it was menopause, plain and simple, and, there, I did fail her, because I should have cured her. He felt a little guilty because, when she kept talking back, he should have given her some other medicine, like when her eyes swelled up and I begged her on bended knee to forgive me, and those times when he used to lock her in the bathroom with a padlock so she would listen to a scien-
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tific discussion about bad women, but I shouldve followed my saintly sisters advice and dumped buckets of ice water over her, to chase away the demon of hot-flashes, yes sir. Although I did do something for her when I ordered all the hot water faucets in the house jammed off, so the icy water from the mountains would make her healthy and transform her into a regal female, instead of this trembling woman whose left eyebrow would always shoot up when he approached her, and then her whole body would shake, as if she had malaria, when he would be about to fulfill his conjugal duties, and of course he knew to be patient and only take her once the shaking stopped, and now take a bath, my queen, in nice, icy cold water to wash away bad thoughts, and to end once and for all this little vexation between us, which is only a little crisis of married life due to the problems Ive been having with the business, and all couples have problems, and all this will soon pass, my queen, because with money or without it, I always do what I want, and I am still king.
f course things would be a little difficult now if she had made it to the United States because the gringos have come up with the blessed history of human rights and that henpecked president does whatever his wife tells him, and it wouldnt be surprising if they had a law granting asylum for victims of domestic abuse, as his lawyer had warned him. If she had entered American territory, things got tricky, because he wasnt going to be able to pay off the police there, or bribe the judges, as he had done before, the three times she had run away with the two children and the time he had accused her of kidnapping, and when the judge asked him, You want us to lock her up, Doc? and out of pure generosity of spirit, he said no and forgave her like a Christian, on the condition that from now on you move in bed, and youll come live on the ranch, and my sister will take care of the baby in her house, and you can raise the girl there at
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the big ranch as long as you dont make her into a romantic. All women are ingrates, and now, after twenty years of marriage, Leonor had escaped, taking 18-year-old Patricia, who followed her because she knows she is indulgent and will let her marry any old nobody, and not my partners son, who I had reserved for her. And the unnatural mother has left me the baby, because he refused to follow her, for me to suckle, forgetting like the ingrate she is the twenty years of happiness I gave her and the spiritual principles that bind a Christian family. He tried to ask himself why, but he couldnt reply, becauseincredible in such a fierce mantwo tears were closing his eyes, and he tried to tell himself that the brave also cry, but he didnt managed to murmur it, and fell asleep in the middle of the sentence, and saw in his dreams a colt emerging from the ocean, and he told himself this was a dream, but the colt slowly pushed his ears out of the water, and then his yellow and gold eyes, and finally his back and tail, which had been kept a thousand years in the depths of the sea, among octopuses and starfish, and he glided gently toward the curve of sky, and on his back he carried Leonor and Patricia. He was taking them toward the Milky Way. What Leonidas didnt know was his tears werent tears and what he had taken to be the Milky Way wasnt. It was a spell the water that made his tears and also the soapy color of the skythat for a few moments had kept him from seeing the world and the silent fugitives, and all of it had been cast over him from far away, thanks to an excellent job of red magic, the magic of love, which had been performed long-distance by Doa Elsa Vicua at Leonors request. Help me, she had asked her. Help me, she had cried out when she saw that no one and nothing on earth could support her. Help me, please she had begged from far off, even without conversing with Doa Elsa, every time that she, under her husbands brutal machine as he sated himself, begged him, frightened, You got what you wanted. Now let me go.
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To which he invariably replied, perhaps half asleep, Go. You can go right now, but you go alone. You will leave me my son. And she had found out from one of the few lawyers she could trust that, indeed, thats how it was; if she took the boy she could be accused of kidnapping. But, sir, tell me then, what can I do? The most sensible thing is for you two to arrive at a friendly dissolution of marriage with a divorce agreement. But you know he refuses. Then present him with a divorce on the grounds of moral and physical violence, the lawyer responded with the certainty that he was lying to her, because the judges and the city court would always be on the side of the king of the world, Leonidas Montes de Oca, who often threw parties exclusively for men, and who had been known to honor his familys prestigious coat of arms with total success in business pursuits honorable and not-so-honorableand who, it is said, had set a trap for a famous drug-trafficker after representing him and being his partner. There was no power on earth capable of facing up to a man who was something like the brother of the State Head Chief of Police. So now you know. Whether you went to Paris or Venus, Commander Jacobo Marroqun, my bosom brother, would send out his bloodhounds to track you down, and he would find you in the deepest chasm on earth and put you in the first jail up in the other world, just how you like it, my queen; and he would find you in the murky depths of the oceans and in the paths from star to star, and below, and beneath below; he would locate you even in the depths of hell, yes, in hell, my queendont even think of going to heaven, because you wont be able to turn to God, who Im sure by now has closed the doors of his holiest house to you for committing the unspeakable sin of trying to break the sacrosanct bonds of matrimony, because what God has joined together, let no one put asunder. No one, my queen.
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And right there, at heavens door, when St. Peter tells you no, my queen, you should have thought of that before you dared to try setting foot in Gods holy house, because those who dont believe in holy matrimony arent admitted thereright there, while you cry before St. Peter and struggle against heavens watchmen, thats where my friend, Commander Marroqun, will find you, with orders signed and endorsed by the proper authorities to tell St. Peter, With your leave, Ive come for this woman on behalf of her lawful lord and owner, Don Leonidas Montes de Oca, and I will take her with your blessing and consent and also the blessing and consent of St. Anthony, who is the saint over marriage, to conduct her directly to Don Leonidas bedroom, where she shall fulfill her duties of holy matrimony. And that is how it must be, my queen, until death do us part, and dont take it into your head to die before me, because I will snatch you away from death with the strength of my love and the public strength of Commander Marroqun, but dont be in a hurry, because youll die one way or another, but only after me, and well see each other there in death too, because you will die every bit a Montes de Oca, and they will bury you in the black stone sepulcher that guards the bones and souls of my ancestors, and for all eternity, you will rest lovingly by my side, and alongside the chaste and fragrant body of my great aunt, Doa Carmen Adelaida Victoria Larraaga y Montes de Oca whose spirit will accompany us our whole life and our whole death, until they come to remove her remains and take them to the Vatican where the Pope will immediately canonize her. And because of all this, because Leonidas had shown her there was no power in the universe capable of giving her back her freedomnot her patience, not even the sweet hope of deathbecause of all this, Leonor had begged Doa Elsita Vacua to read her fortune again, but this time she would help her fix the destiny card. Doa Elsita did accordingly, and Leonor had barely dealt the deck when the two cards that wor-
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ried her appeared once again: she was on the first one, lovely and sad, dressed like a Spanish queen; and over her head the most important card came down, the one of the all-powerful king with four pairs of eyes that allowed him to look north, south, east and west at the same time. As always in these conditions, flight was impossible. As always, except this time there was a small variation: as soon as the king card appeared, the two women, as they had planned, plunged it into a large earthenware jar filled with the tears Leonor had shed the night before under the doubtful light of the moon and the luminous rays of the Milky Way, and so they magically veiled Leonidas eyes so that for seven daysfor the only time in his lifehe wouldnt look in the four directions, he wouldnt suspect, wouldnt spy, wouldnt snoop around doors, or into dreams; and so that his eyes would only be able to make out the sky and only manage to see the milk poured out by the Milky Way; and so that everything would look like a dream to him, like when he saw a primeval colt emerge from the sea with Leonor and Patricia riding on his back, and all he did was tell Leonors empty bed, How strange, I dreamed you were riding a horse along the endless river of the Milky Way. What Leonidas didnt know is that river flowed northward, and thats why, when the seven days of his magic blindness had passed, the runaway and her daughter had already crossed the silver mountains of Mexico and were gliding gently down over the fields of California, perfumed with fruits and freedom. s for Leonor, what she didnt know is that Leonidas was also going to resort to witchcraft, but while she used red magic, he hired a master of black magic, Don Filemn Castaeda, warlock by family trade, of whom it was known that when his father died, he had cut off the corpses head, so it could serve him as an advisor during magic procedures, and it
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was precisely this head which, once midnight arrived, opened its empty mouth and asked Leonidas, Master, shall I chant? Go on, chant, he ordered. But dont go thinking I believe in witchcraft. Well then, master, I must advise you to stop looking for her, because she has already made it to Los Angeles. That was the hard part, because you couldnt count on anyone up there, unless friend Marroqun were able to make a connection with the Interpol, but that wasnt possible at the moment, because Marroqun was being a little slippery with those gentleman over a trifle, buddy. The gringos suppose I had something to do with the death of an anti-narcotics agent, and you know, buddy, that you couldnt enter the United States either, because the gringos suppose you also had a hand in that death. That was when Montes de Oca started shouting that it was all a lie, and that witchcraft didnt exist and that everyone was a cowardthe commander, the warlock Filemn, and the dead head that only knew how to speak nonsense and prophesy things that had already happened, and he ordered the head to bite its nonexistent tongue, and out of sheer obedience, the head did so, which relieved Leonidas great sorrow a little, because it made him feel a little like a lord in deaths dominions. Then he asked them to kill the lover. But I cant, Don Leonidas, begging your pardonI see her alone; I dont see any man to kill, the head of the dead man said and added that he hadnt seen any love triangles either, rather, the problem is she cant stand you, master, and to be completely sure, he had wormed his way into her heart and erased all boleros and other love songs, and likewise any sweethearts she might have had before she met you, Don Leonidas, including any in a previous life. Well then, invent some way to bring her back. If she wont come back by hook or crook, you must make her come back of her own accord. Now were talking, master, the warlock and the enchanted head said in unison, and after several hours of investigating
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in hell, they came back with the answer that yes, they could do it. Thats what nightmares were for. They would fill the runaways nights with dreams of sorrow; they would overwhelm her with remorse and slip the chill of death under her pillow, until, sick and tired of so many nightmares, Leonor would retrace the steps that had led her to the United States, thank the family who had offered her a place to stay, quit the job she had found, and direct her feet toward the border, where she would also thank the border patrol and promise to never again set foot in a country where she hadnt been invited, and then she would move forward, full of love, in slow-motion, toward the Mexican side, where the tough but magnanimous Don Leonidas Montes de Oca awaited her, you, master, dressed all in black like a rancher, with the light of a thousand stars and paso doble music . . . thats how Im seeing you. And so the dead head sent seven nightmares to the runaway. The seven black dreams left Guadalajara, one each Friday, and dutifully crossed the border, flew over the superhighways, entered Los Angeles, dodged skyscrapers, and, one after another, came in through the window of 247 Maple, seventh floor, where Leonor slept, and crept into her dreams, or rather became her dreams, but they didnt achieve what they set out to do. Not the first six dreams. The last one did. During the first nightmare, the soul of a woman condemned to hell for having disobeyed her husband appeared to her and showed her the punishments awaiting her, but Leonor thanked her for the information and replied that nothing could compare to the immense freedom she now felt, and that after she died she would be quite happy remembering that freedom even if she found herself in hell. A green angel with phosphorescent wings appeared to her in the second dream and showed her the delights of paradise that would be hers again if she stopped obeying her foolish pride, and before she could react, the angel took her flying
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through heaven and had her walk along the streets of paradise where good women live. Do they live alone? Leonor asked. On the contrary, responded the angel. They live accompanied by their beloved husbands for all eternity. Then I prefer hell, retorted Leonor, and the beautiful dream fled frightened through the window. The third one wasnt a dream, but an apparition. At the request of Montes de Oca, the warlock had the blessed soul of Leonors father, brought from purgatory, materialize sitting at the foot of Leonors bed, to give her good advice and tell her that a good woman obeys her father first, then her husband, and finally her oldest son, if she should have the misfortune to be widowed. Thats why its necessary, my daughter, that you obey Leonidas, who is your lord and master. That was the moment when the fugitive could have yielded, because she had always adored her father, and she knew he was a very wise man. But luckily, her magic ally, Doa Elsita Vicua, hadnt abandoned her. Although her knowledge only allowed her to do good, she dealt the cards and found out that the husband was using the black arts of the terrible Filemn Castaeda. An ordinary tarot reader would have been discouraged in the face of this enemy, who, it was known, had taken his doctorate of witchcraft in hell, but Doa Elsita, instead of being intimidated, challenged him to battle. And so, at the moment when the warlock and the magic head launched the dreams from Guadalajara, an image appeared in the Mexican sky of Doa Elsita armed with nothing more than the holy rosary. And it is known that when the warlock said one the lady translated it into the sacred language, and in Latin said une and then due and then trini and mili, and with blessed words she blew out the hell flames. And thats why the nightmares, up to the sixth one, lost strength, and Leonor resisted.
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During the fourth, fifth and sixth dreams, emissaries from paradise and hell took turns on Leonors pillow, now to threaten her with eternal condemnation, now to offer her the joys reserved for the blessed in exchange for retracing her steps, turning her eyes to the far-off land, and walking hurriedly toward the arms of her beloved husband who changed clothes in her dream and traded in the Mexican rancher for the Andean cacique, although sometimes he seemed to arrive as a flamenco dancer, but he didnt abandon the paso doble music that rounded up the bulls in the evenings after the bullfighting, nor the ols and ols that celebrated the fierce bull that he wasbut none of this, not even the heavenly bells, not to mention that exquisiteness of Leonidas that was now beyond a manly exquisitenessnothing and no one was capable of making her even think about returning to Guadalajara, convinced as she was that even the genderless angels were more man than the man who claimed her. The seventh dream wasnt a dream, and, notwithstanding, it convinced her to return. Instead of seeing images, she heard the sad strains of a song from her land. It was a song without words, but it was sung by a choir of motherless children, about her sons age, who couldnt say words, but who murmured a plea with their eyescome back soonto the absent mother. Then something extraordinary happened. Come closer, master, the head said, and look at what Im seeing in my crystal ball. There, where Im pointing, behind that tree, close to the river, look whos coming. And of course it was her returning. Through crystals and flowing rivers of air, the silhouette of the repentant woman appeared, advancing from north to south, from Los Angeles to Guadalajara, toward meeting the generous, magnanimous man, who, as in times gone by, was waiting for her, ready to forgive. When Leonidas stretched out his arms in the form of a cross, he still had to wait a bit, because the lovely runaway was slow in reaching him. I told you, master. I told you I would
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bring her to you, and there you have her. Shes all yours, and if you want, look her over, so you can see she comes complete. Now the sky was more clear, and Leonidas didnt have to peer into the crystal ball, because the lady was already before him, maybe fifteen feet away, and the rivers of air had brought her intact, with her large eyes and their far-away look, her black hair floating behind her, and her intensely red lips. Without moving her feet, as if she were levitating, she had taken off from the tawny streets of the United States, and, made prettier than before by defeat and sorrow, she had crossed the border and within a few minutes would be in his arms. But she didnt come empty-handed. She was only a few feet away from him, an embrace away, when Leonidas noticed she was holding something between her hands, and before he could even think to escape, he realized she was aiming at him as she cocked the gun. He tried to seek help from the warlock or the head, but they werent by his side anymoreperhaps they were flying around heaven or helland then he remembered she had been present every time hed instructed little Leonidas in marksmanship, and that more than once, she had shown him examples of her skill; and now he didnt know what to do. It crossed his mind to ask her on bended knee to forgive him, out of love for our children, do it for them, but she didnt shoot him; rather, she passed by him, looking him in the face, without anyone shouting ol! nor ol! and she went on until she reached her sons bed, where he was waiting for her, and she took him with her, back to the United States, while on a table with no nails, Doa Elsita Vicua cleaned up the cards, satisfied with the game, and taking a sip of agua florida, she spit toward the north, the south, the east and the west, for an end to bad times, once and for all.
St. Barbara Sails toward Miami
rom some corner of the universe emerged a lightning bolt, which, instead of evaporating instantly, hovered over the skies of Miami at midnight and shone for almost an hour. They say a cloud emerged from this bolt, as black as hell must be, and that from the cloud, black pigeons emerged, silence emerged, cold emerged, death emerged, nightmares emerged, memory emerged, oblivion emerged, fear emerged several times, and from fear emerged another bolt of lightning that came from the south and lit up the endless black skies of Florida. Those who dared look up at the clouds at that time say thats where the storm came from; they assert that it came in over the Keys, and they swear it ran through the city like Death runs, without anyone seeing her face or her hands. As it passed, many boats broke loose in the bay, and, in the whole city of Miami, palm trees bent over, almost to the ground, doors trembled, windows rattled, red-painted roofs rose into the sky, and finally, a bus parked at the southern tip of the peninsula turned up traveling the wrong way and without a driver along the freeway to South Carolina. Then the bells in all the churches began ringing, without sextons or bell-ringers, as if they wanted to announce that the time of all times had arrived. But before the hour was out, everything returned to its place: the red roofs returned to their corresponding houses; the lightning bolt went back up into the
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cloud; and the cloud turned back to the south. And in the south, the cloud ended up vanishing, because it wasnt the real cloud, and it wasnt yet the hurricane that was to be. It was only an omen. They say the only thing Ivn Ganoza heard was someone knocking on his door in the middle of the night, but he didnt go open it because he was very sleepy and because his wife brought to his attention the fact that they werent expecting anyone and that if it wasnt robbers making such a strange noise, it had to be Death. That seemed like an exaggeration to him, but he ended up believing it because the pounding on the door kept up for more than an hour and because during that space of time, the wind, or demons, did a ceaseless African dance on his roof, and when the storm moved on, it left the tracks of cumbias and vallenatos over his house. The following morning, the radio, television and newspapers informed the population of Florida that the strange phenomenon was only a forerunner of the most terrifying hurricane ever heard of in the Caribbean. Bonita, as the meteorologists had named her, had followed an odd trajectory up to now. Born in the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane had shot violently toward the eastern Atlantic; suddenly she had stoppedtransformed into a corkscrewover an islet, and she spent about a week there, thinking. When the islet had become a deep pit, Bonita decided to return to the continent, and for two weeks shed been advancing slowly and surely toward the Florida Peninsula. Everything that might come before her wasnt the hurricane; they were just omens. The wind still wasnt the real wind. It had rung the bells, knocked on the doors, pulled up the red roofs, carried a bus from one end of the peninsula to the other, danced Caribbean dances over Ivns roof, but it still wasnt the real wind, and the sea still wasnt the sea, not the real one, even if it had turned over a few boats and curled gigantic waves. They were just
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omens of Bonita, who was still just a pretty little thing, but was quickly turning as beautiful as Death. That was just what the man on TV announced the other day. The hurricane coming toward Florida had no precedent in history. Floyd, which had devastated the city August 24, 1992, was like a mouse before an elephant in comparison to everything that was coming. Its winds had reached a velocity of 150 miles per hour while Bonitas came in at 560. Notwithstanding, Floyd had swept away 76,000 houses and had left the part of the city it had passed through looking something like the crater of a volcano. It was calculated that the sea was going to rise to the height of a 120-story building, and just one wave would be enough to change the geography of the United States. The first thing Ivn did was ask himself how Walter Machado, his favorite fortune-teller, had known. The night before, hed told him from the TV screen, Aquarius, Aquarius, a beauty is coming your way, but be careful. Shes a crazy one . . . And Ivn had seen how the eyes of the famous Walter flashed as he pointed his finger at Ivn. Aquarius, Aquarius, when are you going to change?! . . . Be careful; a stormy relationship can flood your life. But you already know what Ive always recommended: love and more love, my dear Aquarius. When am I going to change?! When is my luck going to change?! he lamented in front of his wife, who was also listening to the weatherman at that moment. Seven years ago, Floyd carried off our restaurant. Whats going to happen now?! In the eighties, some nostalgic Cubans said that Moors & Christians served the best daiquiri in the United States, and more than a few weddings had taken place in its spacious lounge because Ivns establishment had become a first-class Cuban restaurant and bar when the hurricane carried it off. The catastrophe didnt even leave it in pieces on the ground; it had carried it off into the sky, where it had turned to air.
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Of course, this event had left Ivn bankrupt, but hed gone along pulling himself up by his bootstraps, little by little, and now, in the last year of the millennium, Moors & Christians II had a more spacious location and was situated in a more upscale neighborhood, north of Miami Beach. He lifted his eyes to look into his wifes eyes, but she seemed to have not heard him. Mara del Pilar looked toward the ceiling as if she were trying to remember something. When she remembered it completely, she started to smile. This was already announced. Ive known it for a while . . . Ivn looked at her, surprised. You knew? Did you hear it from Walter Machado? I knew it, but not that way; your mother told me. I remember we talked to her on the phone at Christmastime, but I dont remember her telling us about this hurricane. First of all, we havent talked with her. I dreamed her Saturday, and when you dream about your mother-in-law, it means a storms coming . . . Besides, in the dream I saw her walking near the cathedral in Havana, and she seemed very worried . . . Doa Luisa Mercedes hadnt told her anything. She had limited herself to looking at her lovingly and then she had gone inside the cathedral. They had dreamed about her that way in the eighties, when they had wanted to get her out of Cuba on a direct flight and she hadnt accepted, with the excuse that she was too old and she didnt want to be in the way. Most of her children were living in the United States, but Ivn was the only one who lived in Miami, and perhaps the geographic proximity was why it was easier for her to communicate with them in dreams. Maybe she wanted to tell me something, but she changed her mind because she didnt want to scare me. Maybe itd be good to call her, Ivn proposed, but his wife didnt like that idea because people cant say the same
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things on the phone as they can in dreams, and besides, telephone communication with Cuba had become very difficult. They tried anyway, and it turned out to be impossible. Every time they tried, a voice in English told them the number they were dialing didnt exist. Finally they asked the operator to place the call, and she told them she would try, but she didnt promise them anything, and they might need to wait a few hours. The dreams about Doa Luisa Mercedes were accompanied by an RCA Victor gramophone with the puppy listening to music, by spiteful boleros, by Nico Membiela, by Barbarito Diez and the Matamoros Trio, by White Rose Gil and Olga Guillot, by Doa Luisas closed eyes and by Don Mariano, Ivns father, as they danced; and they and the music lingered in the past, that is to say, in Cuba, because Cuba is really music and rhythm and speaking through dreams, but if you want to leave to make your way, boy, drink cocoa and pay what you owe. Did it cost that much to drink cocoa? Drink cocoa . . . The next morning, they found out the hurricane was advancing in a zigzag and was threatening, hour after hour, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo. The TV camera cut to a neighborhood in Miami where the residents were nailing boards over their windows. Others were loading their cars with food and clothing, and they declared to the reporter that they were going north, as far away as they could possibly get from Bonita. Then the screen showed an image of the hurricane captured via satellite. Over the green Caribbean Sea, Bonita was a giant red star flinging flashes on all sides as it advanced slowly, filling the sky with an intense yellow, the color of memories. They couldnt communicate with Doa Luisa this day either, nor the days that followed, but Saturday, around midnight, they both dreamed her. Thank you, children, for trying to speak with me. Now you see, Im too old for those newfan-
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gled telephones. Ninety years on ones shoulders is something, but dont worry about meIm fine, and nothings happened around here. In reality, I dont believe anythings going to happen. And over there, maybe misfortune can be avoided. Avoided . . . ? Since he was a little boy, Ivn had known his mothers tremendous optimism. Among other things, for example, she had promised her children she would make it into the new millennium alive, and at that time, more than halfway through the year 1999, she was keeping her word. But the hurricane avoiding Florida . . . ? That was excessive optimism. Its not optimism, the lady said, arching her eyebrows. Its certainty, son. Theres something youve forgotten, even though Ive been asking you for years . . . Perhaps you dont remember what I recommended you do when you opened your first restaurant? No, Ivn didnt remember, but he started to realize that at that moment he was disobeying his doctor, a short-tempered gringo who had forbidden him to talk with his mother in dreams. You are suffering from a masked depression, he had told him as he wrote out a prescription for Prozac, and he recommended that when one of those dreams started, he should try to wake up immediately. Dont act like you cant hear me, and dont you try to wake up, Doa Luisa continued. I told you to put a picture of St. Barbara in your restaurant, but you havent obeyed me. Who would think of opening a restaurant without putting it under St. Barbaras protection? Who would think of leaving Cuba without taking with them at least a little Barbara? . . . But dont worry, son. Thats what you have a mother for. Youve asked me so many times to travel to the United States that Im going to do it. I will go there myself and bring you a Barbarita. Ivn and Mara del Pilar knew about St. Barbaras power to calm storms, divert winds, and help sailors, because they had been born and raised in Santa Clara, a region of Cuba where
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the main veneration is directed toward her. As everyone knows, even though some say it isnt so, St. Barbara is Orisha Shango, an earth spirit that protects, and sometimes punishes, his devotees, but, most importantly, he is with them in the midst of difficulties. A tower and a sword are his signs. His devotees wear necklaces of purple glass beads. Friday is the day of the week when he usually reveals himself. What did you say, Mam . . . ? No, not that. Not even in dreams will I accept that . . . You arent coming here. Remember we tried to bring you on one of the freedom flights, and you didnt accept. What are you going to come on now, a raft . . . ? Youre too old for that sort of thing . . . and certainly not now, with the storm getting closer . . . Pilar joined her husband in begging the elderly lady to resist the temptation to travel, but she insisted and told them in a certain enigmatic way that she would see about the best way to make the crossing. St. Barbara isnt St. Barbara. That is, she isnt a saint, and shes not a woman. It is the name the slaves gave to Orisha Shango, the god brought from Africa, so they could invoke him in America without bothering the Spanish. Thats why, at his festivals, one must put a lot of liquor and tobacco at his feet and dance away behind Egua, the soul who goes before, preparing the way. Everyone knows it, but we dont say it, and certainly not in the United States, this country where there are no saints, much less spirits. And we also know that, although Fidel Castro doesnt like it, he, too, is the son of a spiritYemaya, as it happens and we know this because he had just come down from the Sierra Maestra when he spoke from the Plaza of the Revolution, and a white dove landed in his hands, and that is the force that has kept him in power for so long, a force that can be used for good or evil. And thats why they call him Horse, not because hes tall, but because Yemaya always appears on horseback.
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We all know that Obatala is the Lord of the Good End, Yemaya is the Virgin Mary, Ogum is St. Anthony, and Babalu is St. Lazarus, but we also acknowledge Ogum as the god of lightning, iron, and warriors, and thats why its not strange to anybody that sometimes a lighting bolt hovers over Miami and doesnt go out for an hour, because perhaps its him, looking for his devotees. But what the first of September drew out of the lightning bolt was a cloud as black as hell, and from there black pigeons, death and nightmares emerged, and thats why Ivn knew there was nothing left for him to do but flee once more with his wife and abandon the restaurant by which he was finally getting ahead in the United States. And while people boarded up windows, the weatherman on TV shouted himself hoarse saying that the storm surge, when Bonita really came, was going to be as tall as the tallest buildings in the United States. Can you imagine, Pilar? That means the subterranean shelters wont be any good. On top of the wind carrying Miami off to another state, were going to be flooded besides. I think wed better get out of here as soon as we can. Youre mother has sent us a message. When St. Barbara arrives, we will be safe. Not just us, but everyone who lives in Miami, and it would be good for you to spread the word. Theyd think I was crazy. Anyway, how do you think the saint would get here? Do you think my mother is going to come on a raft? That same day, at 1:30 in the afternoon, the Center for Storm Prediction of the Meteorological Service of the United States sent out a definitive advisory: yes, now it was completely certain. The monster was coming. It was 150 miles away and advancing in a straight line toward Florida. The scientists had a precise map of its trajectory and could calculate with exactness which streets in Miami would form its path, but the only thing they couldnt say was when it would arrive.
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Its strange. It should already be here, said the man on TV who identified himself as Kent Buys, the emergency response coordinator. As it approaches, it acquires speeds exceeding 500 miles per hour, but it has paused several times. Now we have it hovering right offshore from Miami. Any time now, it might leap 30 miles, maybe more. We dont know when it will hit us. All we can do is evacuate as soon as possible. It was a hurricane, but it advanced accompanied by sudden tornadoes. Theres a big difference between the two phenomena. Most hurricanes begin brewing off the coast of Africa, so we can predict their path. They are tracked via satellite; meteorologists analyze the data with computers; and the information is transmitted at hourly intervals to the news, so they dont take anybody by surprise. Not so with tornadoes. Without anyone foreseeing it, they plunge suddenly from the clouds like hungry animals and destroy everything they find. Inside the funnel they form, the wind can reach over 300 miles per hour, and their force is such that they can pick up a train and drop it 300 feet away. Its astonishing that both monsters come together, but thats what was happening with Bonita and her surprise companions. And suddenly, she paused for a week 90 miles away. Perhaps during that whole week, Miami was inhabited only by Kent Buys under his steel shelter, Ivn and Mara del Pilar Ganoza, and a thousand or so other crazies. The twelfth of September, tornadoes touched down all over the place, but the storm didnt enter Miami. In the neighboring states, instead of clouds, the sky was one big downpour, and storms of baseball-sized hail fell day and night. That same day, a storm that had nothing to do with the expected one came from who knows where and hit North Carolina. With the clatter of a thousand trains, it passed over a town, shook it, howled, and moved on, but that was incomprehensible, because it was still not the real storm.
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The fourteenth of September, at ten in the morning, night fell over Miami. An immense cloud covered the sun as if it would extinguish it, and for more than a week, the days turned into nights. By that time, Pilar and Ivn had become convinced that nothing and nobody, not even St. Barbara, could save them, and they were loading their car when night fell. But it wasnt exactly a stormy night. While the sky beasts touched down in the Carolinas, Alabama, and Georgia, and everywhere the end of the world was being heralded, in Miami, at ten in the morning, a night commenced with no end in sighta clear night, serene, fragrant, romantic, replete with memories and tropical music. For several days that were one long night, the black waters of the Atlantic dozed, and the sea became a vast lagoon, while the old boleros of Los Panchos, alive once more, rocked softly on the water, and people, forgetting the pending catastrophe, went strolling along the tropical lanes, the still night peaceful, with the scent of morning in the air. And while this night continued to blanket the city, Toa la Negra, came down from heaven and sang over and over again that two souls joined by God on earth, two souls who loved one another, thats who we were, and we all wanted to waltz over the waves, and the moon had turned huge and yellow. Moon, tell her Im waiting for her, tell her to come back to the edge of the sea. That night went on and onit had lasted a week and a half, and some people started returning to Miami, and the storm was becoming a soft burgundy memory. Rain, rain, and more rain over the rest of the world, but not over Miami. Over Miami, a full moon. A moon as huge as the one swaying in the sweetness of the sugar cane . . . Cuba, how lovely is Cuba . . . ! Thats when what happened happened. In the stillness of that eternal night, while a few entwined couples danced at Nostalgia Caf and Moors & Christians II, the moon perched at sea level on the horizon, and at its center, toward the bottom,
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where, if the moon were a watch, it would be six oclock, there a point appeared that seemed to be growing, as if it were approaching the peninsula. The first ones to see it were Jody Harris and Chuck, her friend for the night, who were chatting in Jimmys Bar. There were no memories there, no boleros, no Cubans, just a pool table, a video poker machine, and a floor for dancing under intermittent lights, together with cigarette smoke and the smell of stale beer, but also a balcony facing the Atlantic, and thats where the couple ended up. It looks like a raft of Cubans making their way here, but it cant be. Nobody would be crazy enough to risk being swallowed by the storm. Not even Cubans . . . An hour later, most of the regulars at Nostalgia Caf observed that the strange point that had cut in front of the moon. Man! . . . It does look like its a raft . . . But no, it cant be. It must be an optical illusion. The last ones to find out were Ivn and Mara del Pilar, who had returned their belongings to their house and were serving people at their restaurant. I told you your mother would come, that shed bring us a picture of the Barbarita. Did you hear me? Dont forget things like this only happen in dreams, and now, just like always, we are only dreaming. The other Cubans did likewise. They believed they were dreaming and decided not to look at the moon anymore. But Chuck, the gringo at Jimmys, did something else. He called the emergency response coordinator and told him what he was seeing. Then he asked if there would be a reward for his information. As for the coordinator, he called Immigration, but a recorded voice answered, telling him to call back at another time. What happened was most of those who worked there were already driving along the freeway to the Carolinas. So then he called the Department of Defense, and there someone did answer.
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The bad thing was there were no Coast Guard ships, because, at that moment, they were all sailing north as a precaution against the terrifying storm. They werent necessary now, since all precautions on the ocean had already been taken. In light of the fact that Bonita had been heralded for weeks on end, and it was known that her proportions were apocalyptic, the maximum alert had been put into practice, and there wasnt a single boatprivate or fishingsailing in the zone. But the System of Strategic Defense of the United States works twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and never, ever rests, even though the Cold War is now a thing of the past. And so when Kent Buys knocked on that door, all the marvelous machinery of American defense began unfolding. First, of course, they made the necessary checks to verify that Buys really was the emergency response coordinator in Florida and then to verify that he was in his right mind. A computer gave them all of his personal information. He had studied at Berkeley, had been divorced twice, had two children and had lived a long time in Europe before joining the service, but not one mental illness was reported. Notwithstanding, it sounded insane to report a small boat, or perhaps a homemade missile, sailing at the mouth of the storm. That was unheard of, but it was necessary to rule it out. Daring pilots began converging over the strange place on the horizon, but they couldnt get very close, because it was too near the point where the storm turned into a hellish corkscrew ready to swallow anything that got close enough. Then the radar went crazy, as if, instead of a boat from Cuba, they were looking at a UFO. But nothing and nobody, not even the latest satellites, could determine the nature of the object on the horizon. The only thing known about those moments is contained in a recording that somehow found its way onto the pages of El Nuevo Herald. According to that newspaper, one of the helicopter pilots radioed the base. Ive got her. Ive got her. Do you copy?
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We copy, Captain Stone. Report. This was a Captain Robert Stone, who no one was able to locate afterwards to ask for more information about what he saw. In February the following year, when they looked for him to write this story, it was revealed that Stone had been relieved of his post and sent to a comfortable repose in Switzerland. Im flying over the object, which is sailing on a huge wave. Youre not going to believe me. Its a raft! This isnt a good time for jokes, Captain. Would you kindly stop? Theres just one person on it. Looks like a woman. Yep, its an old lady, and she looks like she doesnt realize the mess shes in. It seems to me shes knitting. Yes. Its an old lady knitting . . . Youd better get back to the base as soon as possible, Bob. Youre delirious. Jim Robertson, the pilot of the other helicopter, also saw her knitting. Now shes waving hello to me with her right hand . . . Shes pointing at her left wrist with her right index finger. Its as if she were asking me for the time . . . Although the newspapers for those dates only informed people about the proximity of Hurricane Bonita, whats certainand only recently discoveredis there was also a war emergency. For a week, the front pages of the Miami Herald and the El Nuevo Herald showed the beautiful images of a violet- rayed red ball always about to arrive at its destination, but they didnt talk about what was obvious. A serious conflict was imminent. It only came out some time later in news filtered through diplomatic circles in Washington. President Clinton was informed in the early morning hours of September seventeenth that a strange missile, invisible to radar, but whose direction and speed were controlled by a possible Cuban base, was approaching Miami. No, Mr. President. It wasnt a joke. One of the strategies the Pentagon suggested
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was that, perhaps, Fidel Castro was trying to take advantage of the storm to destroy the base of exiled Cubans, or perhaps he was trying to provoke a large-scale conflict, a new Vietnam, which would drop a smoke screen around the islands disastrous economy and maybe modify the correlation of forces and military alliances in the world. I told you, Ivn, that Doa Luisa would bring us the Barbarita. It cant be anyone else. Forget Barbaritait seems Orisha Shango himself were coming, ready for war. But it would be best if youd stop dreaming. The world in those moments was painted different colors: tropical night black over all of Florida, hardship gray over the surrounding states, and calamity red over the path of the hurricane. The small advancing point was rather the color of a dream. But Fidel Castro didnt see it that way. He had also been informed of the strange object by his military advisors. It was seen approaching Miami, but it had no structure. In the hurricane conditions, it couldnt be a raft. Hed been working with the foreign relations people on a press release that defended a South American dictatorship against a pronouncement from the United States Congress, but when he received news that a remote-controlled missile was approaching Florida, he couldnt contain himself. Its a gringo provocation. We must ready the people for war against Yankee imperialism. As for Bonita, who seemed to have lost a certain importance, she decided to take back the spotlight. After the night that had lasted ten days, a clear day dawned on Miami, and a gloomy wind swooped down over the houses and the deserted streets and made the waves roar. Refreshed by resting, Bonita had begun advancing again, as monumental as before, perhaps more powerful, but at a speed that only reached six miles per hour. In a straight line toward Miami, it was calculated that in
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less than fifteen hours she would be upon them. Her storm surge as tall as several skyscrapers together, could then really change the geography of the United States. But the business of the strange boat or missile, although it was the greatest of secrets, continued to monopolize the attention of the worlds leaders. At six in the morning that same day, Kofi Annan, the General Secretary of the United Nations, transferred quickly to his office in New York, and started making phone callsfirst, to President Clinton and Fidel Castro, the leaders involved, and then to the Pope and various heads of state around the planet. At all costs, it was necessary to avoid a conflict that could escalate into a horrifying war, but no one knew how. The only thing that can save us from the storm is St. Barbaras help. Ive told you that many times, my girl, but dont worry anymore because Im bringing her to you right now. Within a few hours you will have her with you. Dont tell me, Doa Luisa, that youre the one coming on the horizon. Dont worry your pretty little head about it, my girl. And dont tell Ivn that youre dreaming about me. You already know all this is just a dream . . . You hear? By six in the evening, the United States government no longer knew which was the greater danger: the storm hovering two miles off Miami Beach or the strange point stuck on the horizon that played with radio transmission and made pilots crazy. In any case, the city had already been evacuated. Of its four million inhabitants, there were only a few hundred stubborn folks who resisted the counsels of prudence, and among them were Mr. and Mrs. Ganoza, the people at Jimmys Bar, and the parishioners of a small Protestant church called Valley of Jehoshaphat. At seven in the evening, several things happened that perhaps only occur on the eve of a new millennium. In the first place, the strange point on the horizon vanished, as if it had
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been a dream, and not even the observation satellites were able to track its possible return to a Cuban base. Nothing. It was simply not there, or anywhere, as if it had never been. Clinton and Castro had to dissolve the meetings they were holding with their military advisors because there was no longer anything to talk about, and because it didnt occur to anyone that a little old lady armed with two knitting needles could have defied the world powers. That only happens in dreams. In the second place, the monster brushed past the Keys and stopped in front of Miami Beach, exactly one hundred yards away. It stayed there for an hour, roaring and neighing. The wave that rose up then was taller than all the waves since the formation of the continent. It was so tall, it could be seen from far beyond the borders of Florida, and its height blocked out the sky, hid the universe. From this wave, as was foreseen, the wind emerged, black pigeons emerged, silence emerged, cold emerged, death emerged, nightmares emerged, the last memory emerged, oblivion emerged and the oblivion of oblivion, but after all that, it too vanished. Perhaps Bonita looked at Miami with a certain scorn and, immediately afterwards, made a ninety-degree turn, and instead of continuing her march toward terra firma, veered north, beyond Canada, possibly beyond this planet, until she disappeared. At least, that is what we can find in the newspapers that talk about the Miami hurricane in their September 99 issues. The rest isnt really worth believing. People talk about it as if they were sleepwalking, and its difficult to know which story to believe. Whats certain is that when normal life was reestablished in the city a week later, Pilar and Ivn found a wide, square envelope from Cuba in their mailbox. The sender was Doa Luisa Mercedes Quevedo de Ganoza. Instead of opening the envelope, the couple went immediately to a frame shop, discussing as they went where in their restaurant they would enshrine the St. Barbara who had taken a lifetime to arrive.
You Were in San Diego

ou were there, remember? It was one of those glorious autumn afternoons when red slowly invades the world. There were red and yellow leaves in the sky and on the ground, and the bus moved indolently along the streets of San Diego, in the drowsy, purple California of October. It was like a tour through autumn. The bus went slow, as if floating, so the tourists might observe the flight of leaves, explore memories in the air, and lose themselves looking for the meaning of their own lives. You were there. Dont say you werent. Autumn is the season of memory, here, there, anywherebe it a yellow Paris in the seventies, a turn-of-the-century San Francisco, some Pacific port in South America, a town near Escorial, a farm outside Buenos Aires, or, if you werent in any of those places, even if you were in a house without windows, autumn and all it evokes would sneak in anyway. Thats why, whatever your situation, you must remember. For Hortensia Sierra, that was the most dazzling day of her life. She had arrived in California that very morning, and after a long while, she thought she was happy. It was a day that made her feel light and free, like when youre a child, or like when youre going to die, even if youre only twenty-six. When the bus turned onto one of the citys main streets, it suddenly stopped, and the door across from the driver opened to let a group of six uniformed individuals get on.
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They were people from the Immigration Service, and they were looking for illegal foreigners. Everyone take out your papers. Sus papeles, por favor, said the one who seemed to be the boss. But he had to repeat the order because the gum in his mouth had turned his Spanish phonetics incomprehensible. It turned out that the foreigners were easily recognizable, because they were the best dressed. The ladies had gotten their hair done according to the current trend, and the gentlemen had purchased new clothes to confuse the Americans, who always assumed the Hispanics were poor and dirty. But the agents knew this, and, although the bus was filled with blackhaired people, they only asked for documents from the best dressed, and from those who sat with their feet on the floor. The ones who sat like yogis with their feet on the seats, or leaning against the seat in front of them, could be Chicanos, or Latinos with legal visas who had already adopted gringo manners, and there was no reason to bother them. As for the others, according to regulations, the Migra people had to recite the text in their manuals exactly as it was printed, and they had to do it with a certain politeness. Your papers, please. Please, sir. A man, lacking documents, was in no hurry to stand up. He was sitting alone on a bench for two, and he claimed hed lost his glasses. Get up at once. Glasses. What do you want glasses for? Isnt a mustache enough for a Mexican? Is there enough space on his face for glasses too? With a gesture, the boss scolded the agent whod tried to be a comedian, made him get off the bus, and ordered him to oversee the orderly exit of illegal immigrants from the bus and their entrance into a green truck parked next to the bus. There was no need for him to get carried away, because the ones they sought accepted the orders meekly. By the time the agents
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reached the middle seats, they had already discovered two young men and an entire family of seven who were apparently from Jalisco. You will say you werent there because youve never been to San Diego, because youre not Mexican, or Anti-Mexican, and because this event happened far away from where you live. But dont forget that most United States citizens have at their disposal a geography thats different from the one used elsewhere. If you are white, youre normal; if youre anything else, youre ethnic, even if you were born in Europe or Brazil. In many colleges and universities, the students believe their country is called America and is bordered on the south by a nation called Mexico, which is where Hispanics come from. Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Lima, Bogot, and Quito, accordingly, are in Mexico . . . But anyway, as far as you are concerned, wherever you come from, we have proof that you were in San Diego that day. The agents hadnt reached Hortensia yet, and they couldnt tell that the young woman was trembling, unable to hold back her tears, but the gentleman sitting next to her did notice. He looked at her for a surprised second, but wasnt sure if he should ask her why she was crying. He wouldnt have thought she was illegal, because the girl was blonde and defied the American stereotype that all Hispanics are people of color. Moreover, in the unlikely event that he guessed she was in trouble and wanted to help her, it would have been dangerous for him to do so. As for Hortensia, if she were apprehended, she wouldnt just be sent back to her country; she would be sent to meet her destiny. Death was going to receive her, waving a handkerchief and snapping photos in the airport corridors. Like a caring mother, Death was going to tell her, Come with me, my dear little girl; Ive been waiting a long time for you. Death was close to her for reasons that now marched rapidly through her memory.
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Deaths reasons and Hortensias memories mingled in the street with the red and yellow leaves flooding sky and earth, burying the bus. Some time ago, in her country, a squadron of soldiers had forced open the door of their home at midnight. They were looking for a terrorist, according to what they said afterwards, but the truth was, they were interested in parceling out among themselves goods from the well-stocked store Hortensia and her husband owned. Christmas was coming, and the military men wanted to take a few presents home to their families. Her husband was shot dead, but they didnt see the young woman at first. When they finished ransacking everything, they moved a piece of furniture and found the girl. And this blondie? Whered she come from . . . ? She wasnt in the inventory, but shes not bad at all. Lets toss a coin to see who gets her first. In her desperation to escape, Hortensia had picked up the metal bar from the door and hit the commander in the head with it. He fell heavily . . . After that, her whole life had been run and hide, hide and run, the length of a long continent filled with borders, ruined, spacious, and cursed. She had arrived in Mexico with false documents, but in that countrys last city, the one closest to the United States, she tossed the documents in a dumpster and walked on toward a San Diego street, dressed in a tee-shirt and jeans, looking just like any young woman born in the North. At the corner of Maple and Main, she got on the bus and took a seat next to you. No, please, dont say the United States authorities were going to give her asylum. Gringos ask for proof. They need papers from the country of origin where the government is hunting this woman as a dissident; or they want to see a judges exonerating sentence, but any judge in her native country, with eyes closed, would have declared her a terrorist. The only ones who can get correct wanted dissident papers, in this case, are the soldiers in charge of chasing Hortensia across the borders.
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But the young woman kept crying, and the man sitting next to her could no longer hold back a question about her health. Its not that. The problem is I dont have papers. Im illegal, and the agents are going to detain me. What did you do then? Good question, isnt it? You know that according to immigration laws, illegal immigrants are sent back to their countries of origin, but those who help them can be considered people-traffickers and could be sent to prison for a few years. The man looked first at the agents, then at the woman sitting at his side, and he could no longer restrain himself. An angry expression contorted his face. He turned strangely red, as red as that autumn afternoon in San Diego. And now what, stupid?! What were you thinking, bitch?! How can you even think of continuing to sit next to me?! Perhaps Im mistaken, and you, reader, werent there. Perhaps I wasnt there either. Its possible that I read this story somewhere far away from here, but Im not inventing it. I believe I heard something similar about Hitlers Germany from an old rabbi in the Jewish School of Theology, across from the Jesuits, which I used to frequent when I was a visiting professor at UC Berkeley. But you and I were on that bus, even if we try to deny it. When you are on your way somewhere, you dont have to worry, because you dont belong to any group that suffers, or has suffered, persecution and hate. And, notwithstanding, you share the same world, or perhaps the same bus, and there is always a choice or a task waiting for you. Sometimes the task requires personal sacrifice and risk, and then you walk forward and meet your destiny, which doesnt mean you have to take it on. It only means you are going to know exactly what world you are living in and who you really are. I believe I remember the rabbi from Berkeley telling us that one doesnt exercise freedom just by doing what one wants.
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Cowardice, for example, isnt an exercise of freedom. But when you accept the task destiny sets before you, then you become a free person. Perhaps that is the only way to exercise freedom. It can happen in Munich, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lima, Little Rock, Miami, or anywhere, wheneverfor whatever reasonsomeone is hated or tortured, mistreated or raped, insulted or persecuted, jailed or murderedsomeone riding alongside you, seated in the same world. Stupid! And you take it into your head to tell me now! The man couldnt hold back his rage, and when the Immigration agents approached him and asked him why he was making such a racket, he lifted up his U.S. identification papers with his right hand while he kept shouting, Take her away! My wife has forgotten her papers again . . . and once again were going to waste time at your office . . . and here I am starving to death! She always does this . . . You really should take her away so I can go back to being single! The agents laughed, cracked a joke, chewed more gum, and got off the bus. Years later, in Oregon, Hortensia Sierra said she had never seen her benefactor again. She never even knew his name. She told someone who told me her story, with a few additional details, and thats why I know some of your secrets, and I ask you again: Are you sure youve never been in San Diego?
Gods Program
he Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Ive always liked Psalm 23, but repeating it and the others aloud, and reading them over and over again for hours on end, was not anything I would call pleasant. Moreover, The Light on the Path was a little church with no ventilation that seemed to be about the size of a wedding cake, and upwards of ninety people were crammed inside. As if that werent enough, it started to rain outside, and the temperature in the temple became unbearable. Im going to read one psalm after another, and you have to repeat with me, one of the congregations faithful had directed me, and wed been at it for more than an hour. Each time we read a psalm, the people chorused Glory to God! and in front of us, sitting in a wheel chair, a motionless woman looked at us with eyes that expressed amazement and fear. Frankly, sometimes I dont remember what it was that obliged us to attend this worship service that Sunday. Professor Maya and I had been invited to this church many times, but we had always found a reasonable excuse. It hadnt been that easy, because Pastor Abraham Cabanillas is a simple man, who no one would wish to snub. We had met on the campus of the university where both Salomn Maya and I are heads of our departments. Don Abraham, a Mexican immigrant whose seventy years are well disguised by his lean body, makes his living doing manual labor, and our friendship
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originated in our frequent encounters on campus after class hours, or on Saturdays, as he ran a vacuum cleaner down the halls or lugged bags and boxes from one office to another. One day, he had asked us which part of Mexico we came from, because the majority of immigrants in Oregon come from that country, but when he learned that Salomn was Colombian and I was Peruvian, he had rattled off the names of the soccer teams that participate in our countries championships, teams we sadly knew nothing about. He took us to his home for dinner later on and introduced us to Doa Paulina, his wife, as two professors who are a credit to the Latinos of Oregon. Don Abraham and his parents had come to the United States in the fifties. Rural men, the Cabanillas traveled from state to state, bringing in the harvests, until they ended up settling in Oregon where the boy Abraham attended and finished elementary and middle school and decided to continue on to high school. I wanted to go to high school so that afterwards I could go on to the university, study theology, and finally become a pastor. I couldnt do it, but as you can see, when a door closes, God opens a window. We dont waste taxpayers money on educating Mexicans, the school principal had responded, and young Cabanillas insisted on his endeavor every year until he was eighteen, but the answer was always the same. Please understand. Public schools dont get enough money from the government. Its all we can do to offer elementary education to the kids who come from Mexico, but we wouldnt have a place to put you in high school. There are no classes for people of color. Please repeat: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness. And I repeated the psalm, all the while roasting in the heat, and I asked myself why I had come this time, and I went on remembering the pastors history.
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In the seventies, the young Cabanillas had to work, like his father, as a field hand and satisfy his cultural aspirations by teaching himself and reading the Bible and Readers Digest Selections. He had been a janitor at Western Oregon University for twenty years now, and that, in some ways, allowed him to fulfill some of his dreams, because his job had down times when he could read in the library. Besides that, Salomn and I had invited him to listen to our classes without having to enroll. Its not right for you to permit people to attend your classes without paying. The university loses money that way, and that might not go over so well here, one of our American colleagues had warned us. Repeat: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness, and I repeated it, even though the heat was scorching me, and the evil thought crossed my mind that, instead of finding myself in a church, I was actually on the road down to hell. Some time ago, and now as a maintenance worker, Cabanillas had met other poor Mexicans like him, uprooted from their land and customs, and he had proposed that they form an Evangelical church. With contributions from everyone, which wasnt a whole lot, they rented an abandoned pool hall and converted it into a church. There they gathered two nights a week and all Sunday morning to read the Bible and listen to Don Abrahams sermons. You dont need a university degree to preach the word of God. Its enough to open your ears and try to hear it, asserted the improvised pastor, but he was pursuing formal education through correspondence courses anyway. The alms of the faithful were just enough to pay rent for the premises, but even so, during the Sunday talks, the community drew up very ambitious plans. Someday, they dreamed, they were going to buy the place and completely renovate it. It would come to look like the Crystal Cathedral in California
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they had seen on TV. God has a program for every person and for every group of people who gather in his name, they affirmed. Renovating the old building was in Gods program, and this programas everyone knowsmust be carried out, because its like a dream were all dreaming at once. Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. Now its your turn. Repeat, please. But before The Light on the Path looked like the Crystal Cathedral, it would have to accept a few trials and some stormy weather. The first consisted of rectifying a problem with the roof, which was falling in out of sheer age, and which, consequently, leaked quite frequently. So one of the members of the flock, Martn Rodrguez, who worked as an assistant in house construction, showed his support by offering to build a new roof. Of course, doing so would necessitate a few sacrifices, like not buying a few nonessential goods and setting aside personal savings for the temple. The community was dedicated to this task for six months, and, in the end, with everyones support, they were able to acquire the materials necessary for construction of the roof. After that, four weeks had been sufficient for Martn, working without helpers on top of the temple, to finish the feat, and apparently it was a success. With the walls painted white and the new roof bright red, the small house of prayer gleamed in the distance, and perhaps its presence illuminated the night and beckoned the parishioners and the angels. The stars had never shone so brightly in the town of Independence, Oregon. With the Lords help, a hundred years will have to pass before this roof leaks again, Martn said at the end of his task. The young man was single, had come from Guanajuato, and had learned to read and write in that very church with the support of a few brothers who were catechists. Perhaps Martn had worked without assistants because it
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was harvest time, and he didnt want to oblige his friends to leave their fieldwork to help him; cutting Christmas trees was their only source of income. Or maybe that wasnt it; maybe he had spent all that time clambering over the temple to transform himself into the solitary hero of the community. The builder was very small in stature, and, conceivably, he wanted to look like the stereotypical Mexican. Accordingly, he had let his mustache grow, but it had come in sparse and yellow, and because of all this, his friends called him the rooftop cat. Now that I think about it, the inauguration of the roof was the reason we went to the temple that Sunday. Two weeks beforehand, Don Abraham had told us he would like us to attend the ceremony. We were looking for an excuse, but two days before Sunday, a new reason, this time very sad, obliged us to go. Consider it a personal favor, the pastor told me on the phone. He had also spoken with Professor Maya. Now its not just the inauguration of the roof. Paulina, my wife, is going to be admitted to the hospital Monday, and the community wants to give her a farewell. We dont know what may come next. The doctors arent very optimistic, and theyve told me she might be hospitalized for a long time, or it could be that she might not come home again . . . It will be as the Lord wills. Were going to take her to the temple in a wheel chair. She wont move, but shell be able to listen to us. Youll come, too, wont you? I knew Paulina, and she had always seemed young and healthy to me. The first time Don Abraham invited us to his house, that had been my impression. Really, the four of us eating dinner together made for a strange gathering. Salomn Maya was professionally a doctor of religious history, culturally a Jew, and religiously a skeptic. As for me, Im a practicing Catholic, and I dont feel very happy when some fanatic protestant tries to convert me to Christianity. What we didnt
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know was that the couple was not completely in agreement over religion: it seems Doa Paulina was a professed atheist. Twenty years younger than her husband, she came from a significantly different background. She had graduated from a university in Mexico City, had leanings to the left, and had come to the United States with the hope of making it as a singer and even of becoming a professor of music, but the lack of an immigrant visa and a degree from an American university had kept her from fulfilling her dreams, and shed been forced to make a living babysitting and caring for the elderly. Repeat: For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me upon a rock. Glory to God! In addition to that, the tax collector had hunted her down and demanded that she pay back taxes from her arrival in the country to the present. And finally, shed had to go with the most suitable option for resolving her legal problems, which consisted of marrying a citizen of this country, and he, of course, had charged her a good quantity of money for giving her a yes in front of a judge. But thats where her misfortunes would end. The citizen had disappeared suddenly, and one day Paulina read in a newspaper that hed died in a fight between two drug-trafficking gangs. It had happened two years after the wedding, and consequently, the lady could apply for citizenship, but without the presence of her husband, things became nearly impossible. Moreover, she could get mixed up in the accusations that now existed against her husband. What could she claim in these circumstances? That he wasnt really her husband? That they had gotten married to fool the State? The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? Repeat, please.
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Thats when Abraham Cabanillas had appeared in her life. They had met at the university, as it happens; theyd struck up a conversation about their circumstances motivated by the fact that they came from the same town in Jalisco, and finally, the pastor had invited her to the temple. Look, Abraham. I thank you for the invitation, but Im going to tell you the truth. I was born Catholic, and in college I became an atheist. Anway, I feel wretched at the moment. I doubt my presence in your church would do any good . . . She had told him that ten years ago. When I met them, they were married and had no children. Additionally, she attended classes at the university, worked for a Spanish language newspaper, and sang in the church, but, as she confessed every now and then, in spite of her great love for Abraham, she felt she continued to be an atheist. Now it seemed that Doa Paulina was really very sick and perhaps wouldnt last until Gods program was fulfilled, and thats why I immediately accepted the invitation, even if Don Abraham couldnt give me the name or the details of the disease that was going to take his wife. He vaguely explained that it was a complaint of the brain, and that the surgeons were going to have to operate. They didnt promise him anything. At the moment, the ladys arms and legs were paralyzed, and it wasnt known if that was due to the disease or perhaps to a very intense fear. They brought her to church that way, and thats the way everything started. Professor Maya, like me, arrived fifteen minutes before the worship service began. That allowed us to talk with the pastor and try to greet the sick woman, who only replied with a nervous wink. Im going to ask you one too many favors, but I would like you, Dr. Maya, to speak about your religious experience. You, Doctor, will do it on another occasion, wont you? A brief silence had followed this proposal, and then the announcement: My dear brothers and sisters, Professor Maya
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is going to speak today about the powers of prayer. We are going to ask him to tell us what is given to man to ask for, and what he can achieve, how our signal reaches the Lord, and which angels he entrusts with helping us. I believe you teach this in your classes, dont you? Maybe Maya was going to clarify once more that he was an academic, and that he offered a history of religion for anthropological purposes but without an outline of regulations for praying, but he restrained himself. Maybe the vision of the sick paralyzed woman and the attention the people were giving him checked him. He hesitated an instant, cleared his throat, and started speaking. The professor began by listing off to the listeners the titles and authors of works he had consulted recently on the subject he was going to present. Then, as is obligatory among gringo speakers, he had to tell a joke. How about we start with the classic theological discussion between Striedman and Schloesberger? he asked, and added, They debated for ten years over Gods existence and ended up doubting their own existence, maybe because theyd disallowed it, and now they dont exist. Ha, ha. Thats a good one, huh? But nobody echoed back his Ha, ha because there was no one in the audience who knew anything about the authors mentioned. The professor knew, of course, that a large portion of the congregation was made up of fieldworkers who had barely graduated from elementary school, and almost half of them had learned to read and write recently, but, lamentably, academics speak just one language, or a jargon that scarcely allows them to communicate with each other in conferences. Anyway, he asked democratically, Which of these theologians do you want me to discuss first? I would like, brother, for you to explain how many times we should pray each day and at what times and what we should ask the Lord for and what we shouldnt ask him for.
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Disconcerted, Dr. Maya started speaking about the meaning of the holy text, and the Hasidic interpretation thereof. The heat was about to melt the temple walls by then, but the speaker, stirred by his own words, seemed completely removed from the reality of the temperature. Glory to God! The man was so in love with his own lecture that he no longer got annoyed when they interrupted him at the end of each sentence giving glory to the Lord. Don Abraham, the picture of serenity, seemed to follow the lecture with a certain perplexity. Moreover, as a gesture of courtesy for Dr. Maya, he scratched his head frequently to give the impression that he was absorbing the lecture. Only Martn Rodrguez assumed a different attitude. The builder had no reason to pretend he understood a word of it. Finishing the roof had made him into a very important figure. He just smiled. He knew he was the hero of the journey. He strutted. When the speaker reached half an hour of scientific explanation, Martn started walking around the audience looking intently at the ceiling as if he were afraid it would suddenly cave in. I dont know what Doa Paulina could have been thinking. They had placed her wheelchair in the middle of the temple, and she could be seen clearly from all sides, but it wouldnt have been possible to find sadness etched in her facecuriosity, yes, but no sadness. She looked first at the speaker and then, almost without moving her head, her eyes followed Martn as he meandered around the church. She looked very pale. She seemed to have already been buried. Maybe her soul was no longer within her body, or perhaps it was striving to leave. It seemed to me it might have been imprudent to bring her to the temple, or perhaps it was a wise and generous act, so she could die in the company of her own, and not within the gray walls of a hospital, and given the com-
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munitys silence, it was possible we were all thinking the same thingall except the professor of religious history and Martn. It was obvious Martn was brimming over with a smug joy. There was a moment when he could no longer contain himself, and he pushed his lips forward, forming a trumpet which he used to show whoever looked the magnificence of the roof. It was brand new. It was going to last a hundred years, perhaps a thousand, maybe even until Judgment Day. Just then, I seemed to feel a drop of hot water fall on my head. Maybe that was the sensation of Pentecost, or the Holy Ghost fluttering its wings over me. The speaker was now explaining that, according to Hasidic tradition, the sacred text not only describes; it also contains the event it relates. If one reads it with devotion, the event can be called again and again into existence. Glory to God! Are you telling us that we can hear the prophets again, and see them, and ask them to pray with us? The only one who felt capable of speaking was Martn, and he was the one who asked Dr. Maya for his opinion, but the professor preferred not to enter into a dialogue with the audience and dryly cut off his academic intervention. That was the moment Martn couldnt let escape. If thats so, I dont get why were going to let Doa Paulina keep suffering, or let the doctors take her away. Im going to ask the other professor to come read Psalms with me in front of her. Im sure that our sister will be cured by the time we finish reading the whole book of Psalms. Glory to God! I believe this request had been made at ten oclock in the morning. Now it was one oclock in the afternoon, and I was still reading in time with Martn. Repeat again: Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence
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that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh unto thee. The monotone repetition had submerged me into a sort of ecstasy. It was my first time going to that church, and I had to accept their ways of worshiping, but suddenly something like a second drop of hot water caused me to wonder again if it was perhaps a revelation from the Holy Ghost. But something made me think that instead of a miracle, the drop came from the newly replaced roof, passing through the tiles destined to last a century, carrying the heat from outside. Meanwhile, the glass of water I was using to wet my throat and ward off hoarseness was horribly hot. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in al thy ways. At that moment, it seemed to me Doa Paulina smiled. She couldnt possibly be smiling with this heat were enduring and the state of her nerves, I thought, but something else happened: from the direction of the sick woman came a rasping noise that sounded like Death snoring and then modulated into something like a moan, which finally became an uncontrollable and contagious laugh. Sister Paulina was laughing, and she couldnt stop. I observed that she was looking first at the ceiling, then at my head. Then I understood. Through a leak sprung in the indestructible roof built by Martn, the rain was trying to enter the church, and one after another, the drops had been falling on the bald surface of my head. I couldnt keep from laughing either. Mrs. Cabanillas was now laughing so hard she was crying. She couldnt endure this state anymore; she got up from the chair and went to hug her husband, Don Abraham. At least lend Don Eduardo a hat. The brothers and sisters couldnt contain themselves either. The only ones not laughing were Don Abraham and Martn, the rooftop cat.
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No one commented on the fact that Doa Paulina could now talk and laugh, and even make fun of my baldness and perhaps begin believing in the Word. None of this seemed surprising to Pastor Cabanillas, not even his wife leaving the wheelchair and running outside, laughing until she cried in the street. Perhaps he didnt realize either that the birds flew transparent in Oregon that evening, and everything turned mysteriousthe green air, the pure light, the crystalline mountains, the gilded trees, the red sky, and the red tile roof of The Light on the Path. Whats certain is that, the following day, the doctor found no reason for the patient to be hospitalized, and to this day, he is surprised and still wants to know what happened to the cerebral infarction he had diagnosed and that never appeared again in any of the new tests he ordered. The only thing I remember is that at the end of the ceremony, Don Abraham severely reprimanded the rooftop cat for being a dreadful builder, and he ordered him to pray every night, change his materials, and take math classes at the community college. I know that Paulina continues to sing in the church, and as for me, I repeat The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want from time to time. Generally, I do it when my faith fails me or I lack a refuge in this life. The Lord is my shepherd, I repeat, and I think constantly that the text calls forth the events. And lastly, yesterday I heard a kind offer from Martn to fix my roof. I ran into him as I was leaving the university. Its time to replace itits getting pretty old. Youd only have to pay for materials, he told me. No, thank you, I answered.
This Is Your Life

oure going to have to tell me your life story, so I can know what youve been up to all this time. You have a little less hair and a few lines on your forehead, but Dante, you havent changed a bit. Youre the same kid who sat in the last row of my class and launched paper airplanes at the boys in front whenever my back was turned. I searched the whole stage, trying to discover where the voice was coming from, although it seemed to come from all directions at once and continued to describe me: Youre gifted . . . I remember one time you and your friend Cayito Cabrejos swore you would be the first men to travel to the moon, and you came and told me. Youll have to be aviators, I told you, but you replied that you would use Flash Gordons techniqueyou would dematerialize. Have you dematerialized now, Dante? Without thinking, I had stood up, and, in that position, I could see myself in an enormous theater surrounded by people who were looking at me attentively and who also glanced at the exits and the ceiling, trying to locate where the voice was coming from. Incredible. It was my elementary school teachers voice. Marino was his name, but we used to call him, out of his hearing, marine, moron, meanie, Mussolini, nimrod, rhino, ratface, when he punished us for not knowing the lesson, or sim185
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ply, when, in a single glance, he guessed what we were thinking, or when he seemed to be everywhere at once and knew why we didnt have our homework ready and what we had been doing over the weekend. The emcee lifted a red curtain, and below it Don Marino appeared, much thinner than before, but just as quick and agile. In a few paces, he was by my seat, as if he were lunging at my desk to scold me, but he just opened his arms to me, and then I saw himelderly, finished, aged, faded and with a look in his eyes that was, for the first time, sweet. We were meeting after more than forty years and in a country completely foreign to our own, and we didnt know what would happen next. I suppose the people clapped and clapped as we embraced, and probably one of us shed a tear or two. This is Your Life, the most heart-warming program on Spanish television, is presenting, as it does every Sunday, another episode filled with sensitivity and love that will be seen by hundreds of thousands of TV viewers around the world. In our Miami studios we just reunited Dante Len and his schoolteacher, Don Marino Rojas, who agreed to come from Valparaso to meet his disciple. This is the first time hes seen Dante in a long time, and, at eighty years of age, this is his first time in the United States. As you can read on the screen, Dante is a paragon of Latin pride. He worked his way up from humble beginnings, and today hes the vice president of a large publicity firm in this country. This very night, his relatives in Chile, his friends in Miami, and thousands of TV viewers are going to find out how hes lived his life. Because, ladies and gentlemen, thats what this is all about. Dante is going to be reunited with some of his loved ones, but hes also going to chat with us, and hes going to explain some of his good moves and some of his bad ones, his strengths and weaknesses; and all of you, including those of you watching from far away, will have the chance to ask him what one must do to
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become a successful Latino in the United States. But in the meantime, well hear a few interesting messages from our sponsors. I looked at those who had accompanied me and met several conspiratorial smiles. The people from my office had brought me to the auditorium of the Hispanic Channel on the pretext that they were going to present a special about publicity in Spanish, and they had led me to believe that our firm was invited to participate. That was how they tricked me into this surprise that, perhaps, was going to be extremely important in my jockeying for the presidency of Creation, Inc. I returned their smiles and looked back at the monitor. The screen was showing a fat woman transformed into a red armchair with black polka dots. Her worried head emerged from the piece of furniture while a voice off screen said that a healthy diet is the best decision we can make in life. Then a group of gringos, deprived of silverware, used their hands as they devoured several pizzas that dripped grease onto their clothes, and a model displayed a detergent specially designed to get grease out of clothing, thus protecting the best American family mealtime traditions. Then my fears began. Who had arranged my participation with the Hispanic Channel, and why . . . ? Of course it was relatively easy to get them to invite me, because our firm gives television millions of dollars in publicity every month, but who had done it? It could have been Hugo Valcrcel, the Cuban PR guy who had always been loyal to me and was trying to help me in my climb, but this could also be a move by Jimmy Bezzant, the vice president of the firm in Canada, who, like me, was in line for CEO of our Creation. I had seen the famous show once, and I remembered that it didnt consist solely of reuniting a person with their loved ones, but also of dragging out and discussing matters from the persons private life. The revelation of a romance or a divorce
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gave way to an immediate and heated debate with the audience. The moderators were a massive emcee and a Central American woman with dyed-blonde hair who said she had studied psychology in the school of hard knocks. Was I going to be subjected to similar scrutiny . . . ? I looked at the audience and found the kind of people who always come with these kinds of programs and who were most likely going to be my inquisitors. At the back, dressed in tailored suits, three round ladies seemed to come in the name of public decency and good manners. In front, a balding man with a ponytail and two white ladies dressed like pioneers represented the opinion of the politically correct, and they were probably going to question me about how well different races were represented in my firm. As for the two young gentlemen with tattoos, all the way to the left, they would ask me if Id ever ridden a motorcycle, and a professor with round pervertglasses, sitting in one of the front rows, would give a lecture about the shows sexual connotations. The only ones who seemed friendly were ten or fifteen kids in white blouses and little miniskirts who would surely shout Wowww!!! every time something surprising happened. But the big auditorium was still not completely full, and the latecomers were ushered in. I thought I spotted a few familiar faces among the new arrivals. Meanwhile, the armchair with the womans head appeared again, but now, through some television trick, she slimmed down suddenly, and instead of a piece of furniture, a middle-aged woman appeared and revealed that she had lost forty pounds thanks to a sensational treatment. She confessed this between sobs and added, crying, that now she had become an erotic sensation and had to flee from the licentious eyes of her husband. Then the host made a deep bow and declared that, in addition to Don Marinos appearance, the program had three surprises in store for me behind the three closed doors on the stage.
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As you can see, the door on the left is embossed with a painters easel. The flower stamped in the middle of the second door is a copihue. And what we see on the third door is, of course, the Statue of Liberty in New York. We are going to open the three doors, but in order, and Dante is the one who will decide where he wants to enter first. The symbols were quite obviousas if they were going to keep me from guessing where all this was going. At first, they would brighten up the evening for me with lovely memories. The painters easel and the copihue, the national flower of Chile, served to show, behind the first and second doors, scenes from my long, gangly homeland. The people would ask me about Antofagasta and the salt-encrusted sand, the seagulls and surf, the deserts, and the skies of Chile. Are you still thinking? Remember that, sadly, we cant wait long. The tyranny of time, you know. Before the host insisted, I motioned toward the copihue. Then two young blondes with freckled legs and pale knees came up to my seat and, each one taking one of my arms, walked me toward the door Id indicated. I felt like a drunk carried by the arms that way, but the applause revived me and I took a few steady steps. I allowed myself to flirt with one of the models, and, without coaxing, opened the copihue door. Just as I had suspected, inside there was another door, and on it, the skinny map of my homeland. A lit-up button marked the name of my town, Antofagasta. Do you dare push that button? Of course I dared, and I did so. Then, the rest of the stage fell away and I found myself in a desert, alone before the murmuring land and a gigantic photo of my parents home. The audience saw me go into the house, but I had my back to them, and they didnt notice I closed my eyes so I could know something about my parents.
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I closed my eyes and found out where they really were and where they were watching me from. I saw my father in his law office, giving peace and joy back to a sad client. I saw my mother giving me vitamins so I would grow healthy and strong. I saw them coming toward me from the sea, where some day we will be reunited. There was a huge moon behind them, but they didnt live on the moon; yet, as I saw how the lonely moon filled the sky, I understood what heaven was like and felt that I wanted to stay there with my parents. Dont let your memories trap you, the emcee warned me. Because here comes another one of the nights big surprises. Look whos sitting here in front of you. Dont be slow in going to them, because theyve been waiting for you this whole time . . . My siblings had also come . . . The organizers of the famous show had brought them here, and I told myself that whatever else awaited me in life, or on this stage, it was definitely worth going through to have been a boy once and to have grown up in such a wonderful family. We hardly spoke, but the cloying voice of the emcee explained to the audience that the Len Family had arrived on different flights. Rafaela lived in Montevideo and Manuel in Buenos Aires. As for Teresa, she worked in a school near Valparaso, while Adriana and Pilar resided in Peru. At a likely signal from the host, the choir of girls shouted Wowwww!!! and the program suffered a brief commercial break to show a gentleman, who went to bed bald and woke up a redhead, declaring gratefully that this was thanks to a couple of red ginseng capsules. Then, one of the two young gentlemen with tattoos asked, And why do Dantes brothers and sisters live in all those different cities? Why dont they all live in America? Dont be an imbecile! All those cities are in America, replied a man in glasses who looked perpetually angry.
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Okay, Mr. Educated. But, why hasnt he brought them to America? . . . Hes a citizen of this country now, and he could have brought them. When a citizen petitions, the family gets visas immediately. Then a very shorthaired woman, accompanied by friends of more or less indistinguishable gender, spoke up. The majority of Latinos are racists and homophobes, she said. And thats why families get broken up. Most of the Len Family probably preferred to go on living in these countries with patriarchal traditions. Dante, on the other hand, came to live in America, and thats why he has succeeded in life. I tried to intervene to say I didnt share any of these points of view, but before I could get anything out, the emcee was interrupting me. Pointing his finger at my sister Adriana, he asked her, And how do you feel, having such a famous brother who appears on television, and who, at this very moment, is being seen by the whole world? Its nothing new, responded Adriana, who has always been proud to call me her brother. Dante was also famous in our country, in something more important than publicity. Dante was an excellent painter, and at twenty-four, had already won the National Arts Award. Wowww!!! . . . Wowwwwww!!! This time the girls saved me from other idiotic questions. The host said that had just given him the idea of asking for the door with the easel and paintbrush to be opened. But first, a few words from our sponsors. The woman who had come out of the armchair stood up and walked all around the stage while a giant monitor showed that the wrinkles had vanished from her face. Then she lifted her skirt and showed off some smooth calves that, as a man dressed as a doctor explained, had been rather shriveled. All that she was she owed to Holy Remedy Pharmacys wrinklevanishing cream.
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Maybe out of fear of turning into an armchair again, the lady who had been an armchair didnt want to go sit down and continued twirling about the stage while a waltz similar to The Blue Danube played. Suddenly, she looked so fixedly at me, she startled me: maybe this woman was thinking of pulling me up to dance with her, and I wasnt going to be able to stop her. But no, it was impossible that the operators of the Hispanic Channel would want to play a joke of this caliber on me. They couldnt be insolent with someone like me who had reached the pinnacle of his career. Creation had three collegial vice presidents, one over Canada, another over the United States, and the last one over Latin America, and that was my position. Thats why I was considered a paragon of Latin pride. Our firm did commercials for cars, banks, oil companies, carbonated beverages, and leading hotel chains. No, no, a joke was impossible. Rather, they might let slip an uncomfortable revelation about a closely guarded secret in my life. But what if that fat, oily, uncouth Jimmy Bezzant had been the one behind this whole business, to make me look ridiculous so Id lose the presidency of Creation? The woman who had been an armchair came suspiciously closer and closer to me. But I was saved by the bell. The time allotted for commercials was up, and the two young women with pale knees came to carry me to the next destination, the door with the easel and paintbrush. It opened before me and allowed me to pass through toward a new scene: a gigantic seascape. It was a canvas I had painted thirty years ago. Facing the canvas with my back to the audience, I felt that I was standing once again, as I did thirty years ago, on a oceanside cliff, while I painted on the canvas the waves of a dismal sea, and on the edge of the sea, a long desert, and in the middle of the desert, a village, and in the village a church; and in the doorway of the church a young woman should appear, but only the white shadow of her body was outlined there.
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I called to mind the girl who had posed for the canvas, but her image had vanished. Thirty years ago, I had begged her to wait for me for one or two years in Antofagasta while I made my way in the United States, but I had tarried much longer than that. I wrote to her for a time, until my letters lost conviction, and then I no longer considered myself worthy of her, and finally I let the years go by . . . But I remembered having painted her, and now not even her image remained on the faded canvas. No Beatrice to guide me through the heavens. She would appear no more, I thought, and I understood that without her, I was left alone on the planet. Alone, deserted, without refuge. Every man chooses his destiny, and sometimes he even paints it, hollered a voice that could have belonged to a dark angel or the host. We found it at an auction at a notarys office in Via del Mar. They were selling off the possessions of someone who had died, and we paid less than five dollars for this canvas that Dante Len was painting when he left Antofagasta. Wowww!!! Now, thousands of television viewers would learn something of what I had done to live in the United States. I had given up being an artist to become a paragon of Latin pride. Of course in the publicity firm where I worked, I had zealously hidden my vocation for painting. The managers wouldnt have understood it, because gringos are accustomed to someone being just one thing at a time, and if someone is multifacetted, it confuses them. They see that on the curriculum vitae, and they judge a man to be not very serious, foolish, not worthy to work in a country where everyone is a specialist. Various despicable letters had been sent to me to at work because of this, since my first promotion. Each of them included a photo of one of my paintings and a photocopy of the catalog for an exhibition I had participated in. What would happen if your bosses knew youve been a painter, andlike all artists from your countrymaybe a bohemian, a misanthrope,
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a communist? But they didnt ask me for money; they only seemed determined to make me live in fear. Wetback. Or, if you dont understand English, mojado. Go back to Mexico, and I recognized that every day any one of us immigrants could be subjected to blackmail, from the poor farm worker who crosses the border with false papers and negotiates a lower wage because of it, to a high-level executive like me who has had to falsify his life and give up, little by little, what he loves most to achieve success. Then I understood the shows catch. The Statue of Liberty is the universal symbol of immigration to United States. When this door was opened, the third one, a giant screen would show to the world the Social Security card I had used during my first years in this country. Someone had sold it to me for fifty dollars when I arrived, and you could easily tell it was fake, but it had helped me get a job in the kitchen of a Kentucky Fried Chicken. After that, Brenda had come into my life, and with her, legality. She was voluminous, ignorant, ruddy, older than me and a bit more fond of drinking, but she had agreed to marry me so I could become a U.S. citizen. However, we couldnt get unmarried immediately because the Immigration authorities could discover the scam and kick me out of the country. Thats why we had to play at a happy married life and put the framed wedding portrait in the small living room, next to the photo of a baseball team and a little U.S. flag. There werent any problems between us because the agreement we had arrived at was simple and consisted of me giving her half my monthly income and her offering me a somewhat reduced space in her home and in her life. Additionally, she helped me practice my English and taught me how to say coarse, rude things in this language, assuring me that this could help me on my citizenship exam. There was barely room left for me on the bed, Brenda was so huge, but I didnt rest there every night. After fourteen hours
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of work, I would return exhausted, and my wife only offered me a place in bed if I was ready to fulfill my conjugal duties. If I was too tired for that, she sent me to sleep in the car, an old red Ford that also belonged to her. We got divorced peacefully, years later, and now a citizen, I could distinguish myself in something besides manual labor. The education I received in Chile and my artistic abilities had paved the way for me in publicity until Id arrived at my current position. As for Brenda, she had never shown up at the firm to remind me about certain details from my past. Besides, she lived in San Diego, while the central offices of Creation were located on the other side of the country, in Miami. My house was situated in an exclusive sector of Key West, and my social circle included only high society people. As far as my first marriage was concerned, I had let a rumor circulate that I had been left a widower suddenly. After that, I hadnt remarried. It hadnt even crossed my mind that in our office, inhabited by languid models and elegant executives, her shapeless figure might suddenly appear. But what would happen if she appeared tonight on the Hispanic Channel? If it so happened that someonethat eunuch Bezzant?had wished to get me in trouble, it would have been sufficient to go find her in a bar in San Diego and offer her a few dollars and a fun weekend in Florida. Just at that moment, as I was remembering her, I seemed to notice that the ushers were directing a pudgy red woman toward the front row. I had the impression that she wore dark glasses and waved at me with her right hand. Contrary to what I had supposed, the exhibition of my old painting amplified on a giant screen had been a big hit. The emcee pointed this out. You guys are right. Not only is he a businessman, Dante could have been a painter. The canvas he painted thirty years ago is so real, it makes you want to dive right into it. But dont touch that remote, cuz we still have a sur-
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prise for tonights celebrity. Heres a clue: Its something that moves . . . and very quickly . . . And theres more to come . . . Of course Brenda moved. When she was drunk she would give herself to swing dancing, and she would probably do it now. And there were still more surprises? Besides the fake ID, the mock marriage, the alcoholic ex-wife, what else were they going to exhibit? . . . I could just hear the host explaining that great Latino men had also been subject to some weaknesses when they first came to this country. I was imagining how he was going refer to what had happened to me once in a store in Chicago. Heh, heh . . . As youll see on the screen, a certain Dante Len was fined thirty years ago for stealing a shirt from Sears. What do you all think? What do you make of it, Dante? Its some guy with the same name, right? But he didnt say it. Instead, he announced another brief interruption, but this time it wasnt commercials. We have a preview of the program our favorite psychic, Walter Machado, has recorded for tonight after our show. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Palmist of the Americas . . . Sagittarius, Sagittarius: choose carefully the door you knock on today, proclaimed the sugary voice of a squatty blonde man, dressed like the queen of spades, or maybe the goddess of the solar system. He looked to me like Bezzant. Oh, Sagittarius: you should have been more careful in your friendships. Dont blame anything or anyone for your current problems. Examine your conscience because today you are going to have your whole life before you, and you will have to face what you have down. He said good-bye, blowing kisses to all Sagittarius and announcing his presentation at 10:00 P.M. What other stories had they discovered? Perhaps my friendship with the Vera brothers from Guadalajara? We had treated each other like family, even though we werent, and they had even asked me to be their son Rigobertos godfather at his baptism. But I never suspected that my godsons father
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would become one of the Mafias leaders. In any case, that had happened some twenty-odd years ago when we worked in KFCs kitchen, and we havent seen each other since. It crossed my mind that after so much time, I had stumbled, and that, as happens many times to Latinos who climb high on the ladder of success, it was now my time to fall. Maybe I had already lost the presidency of Creation and my own permanence in my current position. But it wasnt the most important thing in the world. If they ruined me, it didnt worry me now. Now I wanted to know if all my sacrifices had made sense. I had given up my homeland, the woman I loved, my own dignity, a way of life, and, in a sense, everything that made up my personal identity. And also everything that seemed perfect to me on this planet. That is, everything I was now seeing in the painting: a still faceless woman in the doorway of a church within a village in the middle of a long, gangly strip of desert stretching along the edge of the ocean. I looked more fixedly at the painting, and the woman had a face and a name in my memory. She was Beatriz, and when I painted her, shortly before I left, she was fifteen; now she would be forty-five and must have one or two white hairs, but she would be just as pretty. When we met, we were both so amazing we believed wed come from a star, but it wasnt the star of happiness. Her family forbade the romance for various reasons, among them, my owning little more than a bundle of promises. Thats why I left for the United States. Once the days of KFCs deep fat fryer and Brendas ominous kingdom had passed, and my feelings of unworthiness had subsided, I wrote Beatriz again, but the letter was returned, because not even the street where she had lived existed now. Later, as an up-and-coming businessman, I traveled through Chile many times, and more than once, I thought I saw her on a street in Via del Mar, in a Santiago park, in a wood near
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Concepcin. But also in Lima, in Cusco, in Bogot, in Madridin all the cities on the planet, wherever I went, a lovely face would float past me with a long, long look. I drew her face on many publicity posters exhibited throughout the continent, but no one told me theyd seen any woman like her. Then I devoted myself to dreaming about her. In my dreams, she was married but not happy, and she also dreamed about me. In our dreams, we wrote to each other, we looked at each other from far away, but after an impossible decade, she had begged me in dreams that we be more restrained and heed the light of understanding. Our dreams are very obvious; help me to not jump at everything. I need peace in my heart because I still have to live, she had told me, and thats how we left things. We agreed to love each other sensibly. To not dream about each other too frequently. To not die of love. To not die. I looked more intently at the painting and had the impression her figure hadnt disappeared entirely. In fact, as time passed, she became more clear and seemed to invite me to enter the painting. I tried to keep looking, but a light blinded me. It came from the powerful reflectors in the studio that showed the world my secret life, and the emcee was shouting himself hoarse, warning me that it was now time to go on to the third door. Once more we were interrupted by a bunch of commercials, but I couldnt watch them because my spirit had stayed behind in the last door. The emcee insisted that now we must open the Statue of Liberty door, and this time, instead of the models with the sad knees, he sent two angels for me. They were young women who did bird seed commercials, and perhaps they hadnt had time to take off their wings. But then I noticed neither wore a cardinals capthat golden halo that distinguishes supernatural peopleand that their hair was close-cropped, and I understood that, instead of
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angels, they were police officers who had come to make me pay my dues: my illegal entrance into the country, the use of false documents, the robbery in the store, my old ties with people mixed up in the Mafia. There was no helping it. I put my arms together so they could handcuff me and closed my eyes while I waited, and the minutes dragged on; normal time was again suspended. Before the angels or police reached me, I wanted to look one last time at the painting, and now I saw her completely. It was Beatriz. She was in the painting and she waited for me, so we could walk together as we must when this is all over, when our time came. But maybe our time had already come, and, together, fleeing hell, we ascended circular paths and arrived at the top of a hill where life seemed to end. Then I understood that as long as life lasted, she would come to me secretly at night, perhaps without knowing it, perhaps asleep, and I would walk with her, maybe in my sleep, maybe without knowing it, along all the long paths of night, and that, unlike other couples, we werent going to be together until death do us part, but rather from then on. We came to a summit, and in this place, that was also a cemetery, we stopped and spent maybe hours, maybe years, looking at each other. We spent the afternoon observing the swarms of angels that, hour upon hour, came in search of souls, and thenplead for us sinners, Mary, our mother, and shelter uswe lay down in the grass to sleep a thousand years while the muddled waters of memory rolled over us. Maybe thats how it was, or maybe the doctor who was in the audience explained to those present that he was examining my retinas with a flashlight, but perhaps I had only fallen asleep. Next to the doctor was Valcrcel, the best head of public relations in the world. He was radiant. That gringo Bezzant is gonna die when he sees this! Didnt you know we set this
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whole thing up from start to finish to give you a likeable image? The president of Creation no doubt already has you picked out for his successor. Listen, I loved the detail of you fainting in the middle of the show. Did you really faint? By the way, what were you thinking at that moment? Meanwhile, the emcee couldnt restrain himself any longer and he ran and opened the Statue of Liberty door. This is whats been waiting for you, Dante! he shouted. Here you have an elegant, fully equipped 2000 Mercedes Benz SL600 convertible. Its yours now, and here are the keys so you can go drive along the beaches of Miami with your friends and family. Light Libertys torch again and shine it in Dantes eyes so he doesnt nod off, so he doesnt disappear and so he has time to tell his passengers the story of his life and all the miracles hes seen in the United States.

American Dreams by Eduardo Gonzalez Viana

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American Dreams by Eduardo Gonzalez Viana

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American Dreams

Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

Arte Pblico Press Houston, Texas

Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

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Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

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Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

Eduardo Gonzlez Viaa

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Claudia in the World

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The Duration of Eternity

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This Letter Will Be Answered in Heaven

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Shadows and Women

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Final Page in the West

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The Invention of Paris

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Clouds and People

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