He was the cook, janitor, waiter—the only full-time worker. He got paid three dollars an hour—cash—and he was happy to make that much since the money paid for his one-room apartment, and the food was free. But he had never liked crossing the downtown area at five in the morning. It was no more than a thirty-minute walk, but the journey frightened him, and not even the rosary in his pocket, which he fingered as he walked, could lift the fear that fell over him. Walking through El Paso at that hour was like walking through an ancient, empty church, a church he often dreamed about. The church was so large that the more he walked toward the altar, the farther away it got—and in the dream he never reached the front of the church, but he could not turn back because the entrance had disappeared behind him. He woke from the dream knowing he had been swallowed up by a God who was not good. He knew there was a good God somewhere—but that God was not in his dream; that God did not visit the place where he worked; that God did not comfort him in the night. At five o’clock in the morning the streets of El Paso were like the endless rows of pews in that church. As he walked through the streets, he tried to shut out the dream because he knew the dream was real and he was living it in those awful sunless moments. But even when he was successful in chasing the dream away, it was only replaced by the feeling that he was being followed by shadows who were as noiseless as he was. It was an odd feeling—almost evil—and he had come to the conclusion that dark, empty streets were paths that the spirits reserved for themselves, and who reluctantly gave up their territories to the living—the living who were too arrogant to believe in anything but themselves.
He arrived at his job around five-thirty and prepared all the food for the coming day. He cooked the beans, the meat for the tacos, the red chile, the rice, and the soup. The special of the day was always the same: red enchiladas with rice and beans. Nothing ever happened at work. He didn’t like to think about his job very much because he knew his thoughts would change nothing.
Some of the people who came in to eat seemed nice enough. Others weren’t nice at all and he read their lips as they complained about the food and the prices, the weather and their wives, their jobs and this city. There were days when he wanted to throw all the plates of food at every person who walked in. Other days he felt as though he might break in half or cry, and the floor beneath him did not feel hard but soft, so soft that it seemed unable to support his thoughts, his steps, his weight. On those days he walked carefully as if he were walking on leaves he was afraid of crushing. On those days his boss would stare at him and shake his head. Diego would smile at him, and his boss would walk away.
He needed more sun, he thought. Once, he considered asking his boss to install a window in the kitchen, but he knew the answer would be “no,” so sometimes he pretended there were rays of light where he worked. In his mind he worked on a painting. He pictured his hands with a brush in them, and colors as deep as the Juárez mountains in the evening. The canvas was as big as a wall, and the canvas was full of nothing but soft green grass, full of the dawn, full of a light that emanated from a sun that would not burn his skin.
5
HELEN SOFTLY SQUEEZED an avocado marked with an ORGANIC label at the Whole Foods Market. An older woman stared at her and smiled. “You know my daughter’s pregnant, too,” she said. “After three miscarriages, she finally had a boy. And now, she’s about to have her second.” Helen had heard a hundred little confessions everywhere she went since the day she started showing. At first she had hated the fact that complete strangers would walk up to her and editorialize about morning sickness, about cravings, about miscarriages, about the night they knew they conceived, about the names they might label their forthcoming progeny, the pluses and minuses of knowing a child’s sex before birth, remedies for swollen feet, and the best positions to sleep in after the sixth month. But now she enjoyed the small kindnesses, the unthreatening intimacies, the quiet words that made her feel cared for, made her feel like an indispensable part of the world that suddenly appeared to be inexplicably kind. As she waited in line at the checkout, she turned over a bottle of wine in her hand. She imagined how it would taste. It had been almost seven months since she touched any alcohol or drank any caffeine. Her baby was going to be perfect. But the feeling that she’d like to sit alone and enjoy a glass of wine entered her and took control of her body. The urge to drink wine was solid as a stone hitting her in the stomach. She pictured herself in her backyard, at ease, sipping on a glass of wine in the late afternoon, the sun reflecting in her eyes, reflecting off the glass. She felt the wine on her tongue, and swallowed the cool, rich, red, silky liquid. The taste of the wine was so real it held her motionless—then let her go like a strong hand loosening its grasp. She found herself standing in an aisle of the grocery store.
The sack girl asked her if she needed help lifting the groceries into her car. “No,” she said—then changed her mind. “Yes, that would be very helpful.” Another sacker, walking in the opposite direction, spoke to the young girl who was pushing Helen’s basket. “¡IQue muchachita tan linda!” he said. “Te quiero.” He said it half seriously, half in jest. Helen pretended not to hear, and, for an instant—perhaps for only a second—her face filled with an overpowering shame, a shame she could not hide even from herself, a shame that was as much a part of her as the color of her eyes, or the thickness of her hair, or the soft lilt in her voice, a shame that was part of a memory larger than the baby in her body, louder than her laughter, a shame that could never deliberately be remembered or recalled but could never be forgotten, a shame she kept successfully hidden most of her waking moments, a shame that kept returning to her like a boomerang or a bad penny or a bad dream. In that instant, that shame rose to her face and she felt the entire world could see it, could see the ugliness of her life, could see she did not deserve a husband or a baby or the house she lived in. She wanted to cover herself and be protected; she wanted to weep because she felt she would never be an adult, never be a grown-up woman because she would always be a little girl whom someone had hurt. And then the look was gone. Nobody in the store noticed. The look that deformed her face was too fleeting, was over almost as soon as it had arrived. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. She took several deep breaths—controlled her body—she kept it from shaking. “It’s just the pregnancy,” she told herself, “it’s just the baby.”
The young girl noticed her look of discomfort. “He didn’t mean anything by it,” she said, “he was just messing around. He’s a little forward, but he’s nice. You speak Spanish?” Helen forced a smile and shook her head. “Oh, then you must be Italian.”
“Yes,” she said, “I’m Italian.”
After lunch, Helen stepped out of her house on Emerson Street, and wandered slowly through her English garden. She bent down with a little difficulty and smelled her lavender bush, then the mint growing next to it. She snapped off a leaf from the mint and bit into it. She liked the way the taste exploded in her mouth. The late spring afternoon was too perfect to drive a car. She decided to walk. The northern California breeze was typically light, and the blooming tulip trees swayed softly in the breeze. The wind here was never cruel, never too hot, never threatening—not like El Paso’s. She hated thinking about the place of her birth, but lately that goddamned city had been visiting her like a craving for chocolates. She tired to push the desert from her thoughts. She looked at the green all around her, and took a deep breath. For the first time in five years, the Bay Area had not had a drought. The winter rains had come day after day after day, and now that they were gone everything in Palo Alto was bright green, flowers growing like weeds.
She walked down Emerson a few blocks and took a right on University. She walked into a small bookstore. She had no idea what she was doing in this unfamiliar place. It was Eddie who liked books, not she, and Helen realized she had never been in a bookstore without him. He’s rubbing off on me, she thought. She walked around looking for nothing in particular and found herself standing before the
poetry section. She stared at the names of the poets, and read out the titles she found interesting. The Only Dangerous Thing, Oblique Prayers, Diving into the Wreck, Letters to an Imaginary Friend. She picked up a small book whose title she could not see from the binding and touched the printed letters with her fingers: Words Like Fate and Pain. It was a strange and sad and hopeless title. She wondered about the woman who wrote the book, wondered what it was like to write something, and then allow strangers to read her secrets. Maybe it was a kind of freedom. Or maybe it was just another form of imprisonment. She had no desire to read the book, but she found herself opening it, she found herself staring at the words, she found herself reading:
For you there was no conscious departure.
no hurried packing for exile.
You are here, anyway, in your own
minor archipelago of pain.
Do what every exile does. Tell stories.
Smuggle messages across the border.
Remember things back there
as simpler than they were.
She did not want to think about the words on the page. She knew she could not bring herself to read anymore, but for some reason she reread the words before shutting the book and placed it back on the shelf. She quickly stepped out of the bookstore. She looked around as if she were afraid someone had seen her in the bookstore. She felt stupid for feeling paranoid. She laughed to herself: “It’s a bookstore—not a sex shop.” She looked at her watch and walked toward the bakery/coffee shop where she was meeting Elizabeth. She thought of the poem as she walked, and was sorry she had not bought the book. And yet she did not want to buy it. She was sure it would be sad; she was sure it would make her remember.
As she crossed the street and slowly made her way toward the coffee shop on the corner of University and Waverly, she shook her head at all the stores that crowded around her. Every other storefront was a restaurant. “You’d think all we do around here is go out to eat. Maybe it’s true. Maybe we’re just a bunch of pigs.” She remembered how one morning she and Eddie had gone running very early in the morning, and how they had run past a shop window that someone had spray-painted: RENOUNCE YOUR WEALTH RICH SWINE. She had said nothing, but her husband had laughed. “Good for them,” he said. “Things are too neat around here.” “Maybe we are swine,” she said softly, though she did not realty believe it, did not believe it. She had lived in Palo Alto for five years now. In the beginning she had loved this peaceful, well-to-do town. It was clean, idyllic; the weather was perfect. She had never lived in a place like this, and living here had made her feel safe. She and her husband often jogged through the university. Watching the students ride their bikes to class made her feel as if she had become a part of America. She felt silly thinking it, but she thought it anyway. She never told her husband these things. If she had, she would have had to explain more than she wanted him to know. But lately, the material comfort she was living in had begun to make her feel uneasy. The house meant less to her than she thought it would mean. Nothing she had or wore or owned meant as much to her as she thought it would—except for Eddie. Eddie was everything. Her friend Elizabeth was raised here; she had moved to San Francisco because, she claimed, “the City’s not so goddamned while.” “What’s wrong with white?” Helen had asked. Elizabeth had laughed, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Never mind.” Helen had hated the condescending tone. If Elizabeth knew how I’d been raised, she had thought at the time, then she’d be ashamed of herself for speaking to me in that tone of voice. But hadn’t she led Elizabeth into thinking she was whiter and more sheltered than she actually was? Hadn’t she made Elizabeth believe she was born in the same kind of environment? As she walked past the Burger King, a man asked her for some change. She did not look into his face as she handed him a dollar. “Hope your baby’s bew-tee-ful,” he said. She turned around and smiled at him. “He will be,” she said, then turned around and kept walking. “He will be beautiful,” she said to herself, “he’ll be perfect.” She’d had a dream. She knew it would be a boy—a perfect, smart, happy, handsome boy. She ran back and gave the man another dollar. This time, she made sure she looked into his eyes. She walked away from him slowly. She hugged herself as she arrived at the coffee shop.
There was a short line at the coffee counter. She looked around at the casually well-dressed clientele. “Everything here’s so studied,” she muttered to herself. She felt a sharp and sudden loathing for this town, this place she had made hers but would never really belong to her. She saw no sign of her friend. She ordered a cappuccino for Elizabeth, and a cup of decaf for herself. She found an outside table, and placed Elizabeth’s cup of coffee opposite her own seat. As she took a sip from her cup, she felt the baby moving inside her. She touched her stomach, and tried to enjoy the baby’s dance in her womb. It hurt—but just a little. The first of a thousand little hurts. “Motherhood hurts—los hijos calan,” She winced at the thought of her mother’s voice. I don’t want her here—not today. Please not today.
“Well, don’t we look stunning?”
Helen looked up and laughed. “Yes, we do, don’t we? It’s the extra passenger. Does wonders for your complexion.”
“You really are radiant. How can you stand it?” Elizabeth bent down and kissed Helen on the cheek. She sat down and played with the cup of coffee in front of her. “What do I owe you for the coffee?”
“Don’t be silly, Elizabeth, it’s on my husband.”
“Ahh yes, the husband. How’s the husband?”
“He’s as gorgeous as ever. We’ve fallen back in love with each other—didn’t I tell you?”
“I never knew you were out of love.”
“Well, not exactly out of love—just, you know, seven-year itch kind of thing.”
“No, I don’t know. My longest relationship has been two years—my men have shorter attention spans than Eddie. On the other hand, my relationships never last long enough to get boring.”
“I didn’t say we were bored.”
“Isn’t that what the seven-year itch is—boredom?”
“No, I think it’s just that we were getting a little too used to each other. You know, taking each other for granted. But suddenly, it’s as intense as ever—emotionally, I mean.”
“How long’s all this emotional intensity going to last?”
“I know that tone, Elizabeth Edwards. Don’t be so cynical.”
“My first boyfriend, who never tired of telling me he loved me, broke up with me because I wouldn’t have sex with him—then told half the school I gave him a blow job. My first real serious boyfriend left me for another man. My second real serious boyfriend was more passionate about cocaine than he was about me. My first husband—not one year into the marriage—had a heart attack in the arms of another woman, and my current beefcake is a sex addict. He asked me last night if I was interested in three-way sex. I didn’t ask him if he had another woman in mind, another man, a dog, a horse, or a snake. I know this is 1992, Helen, and God knows I’m anything but moralistic about what happens between consenting adults—but Jesus H. Christ, I just want something that resembles sanity. So Helen, I’m not cynical—though God knows I’ve a right to be—I’m just asking a question.”
Helen shook with laughter. “I’ve forgotten your question.”
“I asked, ‘How long will this love nest of yours last?’”
“Does it matter? We’re happy. As soon as we become parents, we’ll forget about love and each other and obsess about the kid.”
“Just try and be nice to each other, will you? Look at my parents—every one of their children is all screwed up—and all because they forgot they were married to each other.”
“Every one of their children, Lizzie? There’s only two of you.”
“And we’re both basket cases.”
“Oh, you brother’s fine—he’s nice.”
“I think he’s a transvestite.”
“How do you know that? Did he tell you?”
“Of cours
e he didn’t tell me. Transvestites don’t make confessions to members of their families.”
“So what makes you think he’s a transvestite?”
“I found a silk dress in his closet.”
“What were you doing in his closet?”
“Never mind.”
“You know, it could be his girlfriend’s.”
“His girlfriend dresses like June Cleaver—not the silk-dress type.”
Helen laughed. “I wish you still lived across the street. I miss you, Lizzie, when are you moving back?”