Love and Other Poisons

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  At one point she thought Brock’s voice was eclipsed by another voice, a female voice that was low and steady. It might have been her own voice yet Andry thought it was someone else.

  Dawn came and when Andry raised her head, exhausted, she heard the murmur of the water and another murmur. The talk of men.

  She did not move, not even when she was able to see them, stepping from between the mist. The soldiers, having successfully found their trail, now smiled and pointed at her.

  “There’s the girl,” one of the men said.

  Andry waited, immobile. The men approached but she remained in her place.

  Yet there, in the tail of her eyes, some movement. Something pale.

  “Come here, you,” the tall soldier said, pulling her forward.

  Andry bent like a reed, watched him with scared eyes as he tossed her towards another one of the men. Only she wasn’t scared of him. Of them anymore. Andry could smell moisture, leaves, mud and something else. Something dank and old.

  “Where is the other? Where is the man?” someone asked.

  Andry could not speak for there again, in the corner of her eyes, something white. It flitted and danced, between the mist and the water. She knew it. Knew her and it knew her back in turn.

  Blood and water and wishes. Brock’s nightly fairy tales made flesh. Come to life.

  “Are you stupid? Come on, speak.”

  Danger. Around them and they could not see. Did not seem to see or fear. She feared. She feared what she had done; what she had called forth in her desperation.

  At last she heard one of the men gasp, his voice hoarse.

  “What is that?”

  Andry knew. Andry closed her eyes.

  If you cannot see her she cannot harm you, Brock had said and Andry wanted to believe this part of the story was true.

  She felt the man that had been holding her, his hands releasing her and the other yelling something. She closed her eyes and a part of her said she was foolish, that she ought to run. But another part remembered the stories, half-forgotten yet never far from thought.

  She clung to the stories.

  Andry thought she heard one of the men scream, far away, and then a sudden, loud splash. Then there was nothing.

  A drop of water fell upon her head, then another. Rain.

  “Andry?”

  Brock’s voice and now she did snap her eyes open as he stumbled towards her.

  “Andry, what are you doing?” he asked.

  Her voice seemed to have escaped her and she looked up at him, mutely.

  “You’ve been crying,” he said and she realized as he touched her cheek that this was true.

  The rain fell more steadily.

  Andry watched the stranger as he slept, lulled by the medicine they’d brought, and felt Brock watching her at the same time. She smoothed the covers of the man’s bed and rose.

  “Will he live?” Brock asked, almost casually. His chest was all bandaged and he had dark circles under his eyes, but looked rather lively.

  “My mother says he will.”

  “It was a mighty foolish thing to do.”

  “I know.”

  She left the small hut and sat outside. It had not rained that day and the sun shone for a change.

  Andry observed the river and noticed something glittering in the water. Knee deep she stood and bent down.

  It was a ring.

  Angry held it in her palm, watching the pretty golden circle with interest and wondered how far she might get with it. Surely farther than Azun, maybe as far as the great capital-city where she could wear pearls in her ears and sail on a barge.

  Andry contemplated the ring and the possibilities before tossing it back into the river.

  Away it went, dragged by the current along with a bunch of dead leaves and some twigs. When she turned around there was Brock leaning against the door of the hut, looking at her.

  Neither of them said anything.

  “We need more firewood,” he finally told her.

  Andry nodded and went towards him, her skirts dripping. But the day had some warmth to it and her clothes would dry off quickly.

  Her fingers are stained black with tobacco residue. When Marina goes home at night the aroma of tobacco clings to her clothes and her hair so that she never seems to leave the factory. The intense scent made her eyes watery when she first stepped into this room, but that was a long time ago.

  Marina sits in the rolling room, takes the flat tobacco leaves and rolls them, pausing to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand. Each day Marina rolls up to ten atados, each containing fifty cigars. She is paid by the number of cigars she assembles, and her fingers are quick. But today it is uncommonly hot and she feels sluggish.

  Marina rests a hand against the swell of her belly. She’s eight months pregnant and soon enough she’ll have to pause her constant rolling of cigars to give birth. But not yet. Not for a while, yet. Still, she ought to rest for a tiny bit.

  Marina pulls out a folded piece of paper from her apron’s pocket. She smooths the paper upon her table with the palm of her hand and stares at all the big words printed on it. She can’t read, but the man who handed it to her told her there was an airship show with dirigibles and flying machines from many countries. Far off places like Canada and Japan, and other countries with names she can’t even pronounce.

  Sublime artifacts from around the world, he said. See airships powered by the rays of the sun. The amazing brass cyclocopters. Witness the wonders of mechanics and flight!

  Marina can’t read the words, but the pictures are clear enough. There’s one big ship shaped like a cigar and beneath it others that look like spheres with tiny baskets dangling from them. She also spots one aircraft that resembles a fan and another that, she could swear, is a gigantic fish with shiny scales.

  Cata, who works on the table next to Marina, glances at her. The older woman coughs. It is a permanent cough caused by years of inhaling tobacco dust. If Marina keeps working in the factory one day she’ll have a similar cough. But work is work and cigar making is better than cigarette making. It pays more. Besides, Marina has steady work. At larger tobacco factories, like El Buen Tono, work can be haphazard. Women line up in their rebozos outside El Buen Tono in the morning, starting at five am, and wait for the factory’s mistresses to inspect them. Each morning the mistresses has a set number of workers that will be allowed inside. Once the quota is reached the factory doors close. Marina is lucky to be a trusted employee and to work with cigars. She is called back in every day. The big factories, she’s heard, have electric lighting and big windows, but if work ebbs and flows then she prefers the steady security of her small site. She prefers the cigars. She prefers rolling to pressing, grading or sorting.

  “There’s an airship show today downtown this evening,” Marina says. “There will be 50 different airships from 30 different countries. There’s ships that can change color. They go from yellow to red to blue. There’s ships that glisten and ripple, as though they were made out of water.”

  “That’s nice,” says Cata. She’s an old woman, Cata. Her hair is going white and she wears it neatly pulled back. She dresses all in black, as befits a widow, though her husband has been dead twenty years. Marina thinks Cata wears widowhood like a mark of pride.

  “It’s a bit expensive, though,” Marina admits. She ought to be saving all her pesos for the baby and the trip back home, but the airships seem so exciting and she doesn’t think they come to Mexico City that often. Not that many, at least. This sounds special.

  Cata shrugs. She is busy rolling her cigars, applying a touch of gum at the tip. Her wrinkled hands fly.

  “If I roll half a wheel by three o’clock I could ask permission to go home early and see it.”

  “You think the mistress will let you leave to see balloons?”

  Marina glances at the mistress, who is standing on the other end of the long room. All the cigar rollers are women and so are the mistresses who supervise
them. There are men at the factory, but they work in the storage and moisture section, handling the large bulks of tobacco leaves. In the big factories there are copper automatons that can stack heavy crates. But automatons and men can’t do the fine work of cigarette rolling. Rolling requires small, dexterous hands. Marina’s department, tobacco rolling, is a feminine land.

  “It’s not balloons and I wouldn’t tell her I’m going to see them, anyway.”

  “You could tell her you’re about to give birth and she wouldn’t let you go,” Cata says.

  When Marina started working at the factory — she was fourteen that first summer — there used to be a reader, paid collectively by the tobacco workers, who sat on a stool and read the newspaper or a book to them. It was pleasant to hear the stories about battles and swords and people doing heroic deeds. One time, a man fought a giant squid, piercing its enormous round eye with a harpoon and Marina almost felt the ship sway beneath her feet as the reader described the violent waters, despite the fact that she had never been on a boat, not even the little canoes of Xochimilco. But the mistress didn’t like the reader and now they work in silence.

  This mistress is strict and Marina knows she’s already on shaky ground with her. Marina is, after all, pregnant. Soon she’ll have to take a week off to give birth and take the baby to live with her mother back in Xuqila. Marina works six days a week, twelve hours a day. She won’t be able to see the baby except maybe during Christmas and Holy Week, if she can gather the money for her train fare.

  When she thinks of Xuqila and the distance between her and her mother’s home, when she thinks about the baby growing up to call someone else mama, to know Marina only as a stranger who comes to visit a few times a year, her heart aches. But Marina works at the factory. Cigars must be rolled.

  “The mistress looks like she’s in a good mood today,” Marina ventures.

  “Why shouldn’t she be? She’s getting married. Didn’t you hear?”

  Marina glances at the mistress. She can’t quite tell how old she is, but Marina would wager she’s bordering on thirty while Marina is just twenty. The mistress is an old maid, but apparently still fit for a wedding. Marina feels both jealous and hopeful. She knows she is pretty. The little mirror in her room has confirmed this truth many times. If the mistress can wed, maybe there is hope for Marina. Maybe even though Marina is just a workwoman, a cigarrera, she can also become a decent lady and have a little wedding. Arturo might even come back to her and wed her, and Marina can raise the baby; they can be a family, though this possibility seems as distant as the airships that must be slowly circling the city.

  “Is he a nice fellow?” Marina asks, hopeful. Perhaps this is a love story. Perhaps when she was walking home one night the mistress stumbled onto a pleasant man. It started to rain and he offered to share his umbrella. Perhaps he even offered his carriage. How nice that would be, to have your own carriage. Or, Marina looks down at the piece of paper with the nice pictures, your own airship.

  How much does an airship cost, Marina wonders. If I had an airship I could visit my baby every week. It wouldn’t have to be an airship of silver and ivory, I’d be happy with one made out of tin.

  “Does it matter?” Cata says.

  “Well, I’d think she’d want to marry someone who treats her well.”

  “Men never treat women well. At least she gets to leave this place.”

  “Not all men are nasty.”

  Cata chuckles, eyeing Marina’s belly. Marina tries to ignore her laughter and she touches the flyer advertising the airshow. Cata’s an old, bitter hag. What does she know? There’s a whole world of possibilities out there. There’s iron ships that can go beneath the water. And people can wear heavy suits and walk upon the ocean floor, gathering pearls. And there’s the airships too, blazoned in their beautiful colors, some of them even glow at nights, like gigantic fireflies.

  “She’s marrying Eulalio,” Cata says.

  Each morning Marina is handed the raw material to make the cigars. The tobacco and the paper are weighed. At the end of the day she gives back the raw materials left, if any. All workers much be inspected before they depart, to make sure they haven’t stolen any tobacco. One of the persons who does the searching is Eulalio, a foreman. He pinches the girls and if they protest he’ll say they have been stealing materials, and they’ll have their wages discounted, losing up to twenty cents. A month ago Eulalio made Marina take off her stockings and her shoes, to make sure she wasn’t stealing tobacco. He did it simply because he felt like it, for there was no reason to think Marina might steal. She has been with the factory for more than five years and rolls a prodigious amount of cigars. Still, she had to obey him. She had to sit down upon the dusty floor of the patio, slowly, for her great belly made it difficult to maintain her balance, and pull off her shoes and her stockings for everyone to see.

  The mistress is marrying Eulalio. Well, if that’s the case Marina doesn’t envy her. She’d much rather have an airship than a smirking, mean man like that.

  Xuqila would be just around the corner. Airships go real fast and it wouldn’t be any trouble to fly there each Sunday, Marina thinks. I could take the baby with me for a ride and we could look down at the city, which I’m sure is like looking at tiny ants running around an anthill. And we’d laugh, because there’d be pretty clouds and a light breeze.

  “You should come with me to see the airship show,” Marina says.

  “Are you still going on about that?”

  Marina shrugs and stands up. She folds the flyer and tucks it back in her pocket. The mistress is at the other end of the room and that is where Marina goes, pausing to smooth a lock of hair back. How hot it is today! Her palms are sweaty and her flesh feels like it is being dragged across a hot, cast iron comal.

  “Miss Núñez, I wanted to ask if I could possibly leave early today,” Marina says. “I can try to roll half a wheel before three o’clock.”

  “Before three? You think you can even get close to half a wheel?” the mistress asks and Marina can’t help but notice that the dress the mistress wears is of a nice deep gray, with brass buttons, and it looks so much better than Marina’s own dress, the blue one her mama made for her.

  “I’m very fast, miss.”

  “Nobody is that fast,” says the mistress. “And even if you do, you can’t.”

  Marina returns to her station. She sits down and rolls her cigars, her body feeling as heavy as a rock. She drowns in her work, rolls for a long time, and then comes the lunch break. The doors of the factory only open at morning and night. The workers must eat their meals inside. Marina takes her little food stash and walks to one of the small, high windows lining the right side of the room. She’s very short and she can’t see much but she tries to look at the sky. Perhaps, if she is lucky, she might glimpse the belly of an ivory airship as it sweeps majestically towards her.

  The sky is a perfect, uninterrupted blue. There are no airships in sight. Just the sun, lazily licking the factory.

  Marina dips her hand into her apron’s pocket. She holds up the flyer against the window and presses her other hand against her belly.

  Sublime artifacts, she thinks, and wonders what sublime means.

  Six dismembered bodies found in Ciudad Juarez. Vampire drug-wars rage on.

  Domingo reads the headline slowly. Images flash on the video screen of the subway station. Cops. Long shots of the bodies. The images dissolve, showing a young woman holding a can of soda in her hands. She winks at him.

  Domingo waits to see if the next news items will expand on the drug-war story. He is fond of yellow journalism. He also likes stories about vampires; they seem exotic. There are no vampires in Mexico City: their kind has been a no-no for the past 30 years, around the time the Federal District became a city-state.

  The next story is of a pop-star, the singing sensation of the month, and then there is another ad, this one for a shoulder-bag computer. Domingo sulks, changes the tune on his music player.
r />   He looks at another screen with pictures of blue butterflies fluttering around. Domingo takes a chocolate from his pocket and tears the wrapper.

  He spends a lot of time in the subway system. He used to sleep in the subway cars when he was a street kid making a living by washing windshields at cross streets. Those days are behind. He has a place to sleep and lately he’s been doing some work for a rag-and-bone man, collecting used thermoplastic clothing. He complements his income with other odd jobs. It keeps him well-fed and he has enough money to buy tokens for the public baths once a week.

  He bites into the chocolate bar.

  A woman wearing a black vinyl jacket walks by him, holding a leash. Her Doberman must be genetically modified. The animal is huge.

  He’s seen her several times before, riding the subway late at nights, always with the dog. Heavy boots upon the white tiles, bob cut black hair.

  Tonight she moves her face a small fraction, glancing at him. Domingo stuffs the remaining chocolate back in his pocket, takes off his headphones and follows her quickly, squeezing through the doors of the subway car she’s boarding.

  He sits across from her and is able to get a better look at the woman. She is early twenties, with large eyes that give her an air of innocence which is quickly dispelled by the stern mouth. The woman is cute, in an odd way.

  Domingo tries to look at her discreetly, but he must not be discreet enough because she turns and stares at him.

  “Hey,” he says, smiling. “How are you doing tonight?”

  “I’m looking for a friend.”

  Domingo nods, uncertain.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen,” he replies.

  “Would you like to be my friend? I can pay you.”

  Domingo isn’t in the habit of prostituting himself. He’s done it once or twice when he was in a pinch. There had also been that time with El Chacal, but that didn’t count because Domingo hadn’t wanted to and El Chacal had made him anyway, and that’s when Domingo left the circle of street kids and the windshield wiping and went to live on his own.