In Perfect Light

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  He found himself walking toward his old neighborhood. It wasn’t far. He still remembered. When he got to his old street, he stood outside number 12.

  He sat on the sidewalk.

  And then he remembered he’d left something here. His father’s ring. Underneath a brick in the courtyard.

  Everywhere you went, you left something behind.

  Maybe someday he would come back and get it. Maybe that day would really come to pass. He picked himself up from the sidewalk and made his way back toward the bridge. He didn’t think about anything. He felt as empty as the streets. But the streets at least had a design and a purpose.

  His steps were slow and steady. What was the hurry? It was too late to get any sleep.

  At the top of the Santa Fe Bridge, he looked back at Juárez, then looked toward El Paso. He wondered if he would ever have a country. Americans, they were always so sure of themselves—even Chicanos. So secure, as if the very country that was their home gave them a purpose. It didn’t matter that it was an illusion, didn’t matter at all because the word America created order in their minds, and for all he knew, created order in their hearts. Maybe it was a cruel word, America, but it was a word that kept chaos at bay. But not for him. And Mexico was as foreign as America. Mexico had its own cruelties, just as it had its own sense of timing and order. But neither place had made a space for him. Neither had claimed him as a son. And so, he thought, if he stayed right here for the rest of his life, it would be perfect. Right here. Disinherited and dispossessed. Right here—in the middle of two countries. Which was the same as nowhere.

  The light of dawn brought so little comfort.

  Grace, too, woke in the middle of the night. Such a strange and wonderful dream that had come to her. A gift perhaps from her withholding God. He’d had pity on her and sent a different dream. A small reward for an insignificant worker in the fields.

  At last a different dream. No soundless and swallowing night, no young Sam and no Mister spinning around in an Eden that had no room for her. So strange, this new dream, with a perfect logic that undermined the pedestrian rules of living. And such a strange and wondrous dream it was.

  He’d been walking down the middle of the street, the man, and the empty street was clean, as empty of litter as it was of people, washed in rain and shining in the light of a moon that was nearly as bright as a sun, but it was clearly night, in the dream, and as the man walked, she knew who he was. Andrés Segovia. And as he moved closer and closer to where she was standing, she could see he was changing features, and then he wasn’t Andrés Segovia at all, he was Mister—Mister?—and just as he was about to speak to her, she could see it wasn’t Mister at all, but a complete stranger, more handsome, more beautiful than Andrés Segovia or her son or any man she’d ever met, and he held out his hand. And she knew that the hour had come and she didn’t have any regrets and she knew everything was done, everything packed, no looking back. He wouldn’t hurt her. All hurt was past now. She took the stranger’s hand.

  Arm in arm, she walked with him, down the quiet street—into the empty, expectant city. And as she turned to look at him, her heart leaped with the immaculate joy of a girl. Sam! Sam!

  God, God send me the dream again.

  Part Three

  …for at evening time there shall be light.

  —ZACHARIA 14:7

  The Silent Love of Countries

  For three nights, Mando and Yolie went missing. Gone. Disappeared. No one to call, no phone in the house—and who would they have called? What would they have said? And wouldn’t they want to know why a boy and a girl were all alone in a house? So there was nothing for Andrés to do except do what he had always done—wait and worry. He had become very good at that. He had become an expert. He hated himself for being like that. He swore to himself that one day, when he was emancipated, he wouldn’t care enough about anything to worry. About anything.

  But the news was not all bad. There was enough food in the house, though the food was nothing special. That was okay. Special was not something they were used to. Andrés made simple things, beans, rice, squash with onions and tomatoes. He’d learned that by watching his mom. Easy stuff. Beans were easy—and there was bacon, so he put bacon in the pot and the house smelled good, and he made quesadillas with menonita and tortillas de maíz on the comál. He knew how to make those. They were easy, too, and Ileana loved to watch the way the farmer’s cheese the Mennonites made melted in between the two tortillas and ran out onto the comál.

  She had her rituals, Ileana, that girl Andrés adored. She always wanted him to burn a special tortilla just for her because she liked the way a burned tortilla tasted. She loved bean burritos with just a little bit of chile. At first, she hadn’t liked beans because she said they were only for poor Mexicans, and Yolie had gotten mad at her and said, “What the hell do you think we are?” Ileana had made a face and refused to eat, but she began liking them after Andrés had made up some story about how bean burritos made the heart of a little girl burn like a fire in the cold night. That burning heart had kept the girl in the story from freezing to death.

  So they ate, and they were okay, even though they weren’t happy. Okay was okay. Sure. But the house was still and quiet like a breezeless day in the Chihuahuan desert. Still as death, and Andrés felt as if it were up to him to make noise so that his sister would know they were still alive. And even though Andrés didn’t feel like talking, he talked. And even though Ileana didn’t feel like eating, she ate. They talked and ate. And they were alive.

  Sometimes Andrés sang, and he hadn’t known that he could sing—but he could. He didn’t know where that came from. So sometimes he sang for Ileana, and she would look at him and tell him he was an angel. And he would laugh and say that angels didn’t need bodies and they didn’t need to eat beans, either. He said those things to make her laugh. And she did laugh. And so, they were alive.

  But there was a fear in Ileana. She would cling to Andrés, her brother, whom she loved and needed, cling to Andrés, her brother, because he was the only one left now, and Andrés could see she was afraid. And so he would kiss her and tell her everything was fine, and he would study her face and she would hope, and he could see that she was trying to believe.

  It was getting cooler and cooler in the house now because the weather was beginning to change, and every evening it rained. And Andrés and Ileana would sit in the courtyard under an umbrella and watch the rain. But they were sad, Andrés and Ileana. And everything was waiting. For three nights, they were alone. And Andrés would tell stories, happy stories, stories about dogs who were lost but found their way home, and sometimes, when the dogs didn’t find their way home, a good family took them in, and the dogs wound up happy and warm and wagging their tails. And Andrés made up stories about children who thought their parents were dead, but found out that they were alive. Happy stories. And everything in the world that mattered was in the happy stories Andrés was telling. And everything in the world was Ileana listening to the brother she loved. And everything in the world was waiting.

  On that fourth day, they woke to the sound of the rain and the thunder. The sky was angry and shouting, and it reminded Andrés of how Mando and his father had shouted at each other and had drowned out the sound of love. They had drowned out the sound of his mother’s voice. That’s what Andrés thought. That’s what he remembered. And he hated remembering as much as he hated worrying.

  When he woke on the fourth day to the sound of thunder, that was when he decided. It was time now. To leave. Because even though they lived here, this place was never their home. And they would never belong. And they needed to find where they would fit. Even a coat needed a place where it could hang. That’s what his father used to say. He understood what that meant now.

  Andrés knew that this house was just a hiding place and nothing more. And he didn’t want to hide anymore because it made him feel sad, made him feel as if he had done something wrong, made him feel as if he was a secret th
at was being kept from the world, and he didn’t want to be a secret. He wanted to be a boy that everyone could see and talk to. He wanted to be a boy that rode his bike up and down on the street and laughed and yelled the stupid things that boys were supposed to yell. He was tired of being careful, because that’s what Mando and Yolie were always telling him, be careful you have to be very careful, and they always said it in a hushed tone, the sort of hushed tone that made him feel like a secret that had to be kept out of sight, like something ugly.

  He remembered one day when he’d begged Yolie, “Take us to see the Fernandezes. Just for a day. Just for an hour.” Yolie had yelled at him and shaken him and there was a fire in her face and he knew he’d started that fire. “Don’t you understand anything? We can’t ever go back there again. Not ever?”

  “But why, Yolie?”

  “Because they’ll take us away from each other. And they’ll hurt Mando because they don’t understand that Mando is helping us. They’ll say that Mando is hurting us and they’ll put him in jail or worse—and do you want that? Do you want them to hurt Mando?”

  And so he had come to understand that yes, they were hiding. Yes, they were a secret. They had to be very careful.

  But he was tired. He wasn’t strong enough to be that careful anymore. And he knew he was betraying his sister and his brother in his heart. And he hated himself, and he knew they would hate him forever. But he had to decide between Yolie and Ileana, and so he chose Ileana. And what if Yolie never came back? What if they were the traitors? Maybe they had decided that they had to live their own lives. Maybe they felt like they were secrets, too, and they didn’t want to be secrets anymore, either. Maybe he and Ileana were burdens. “Children are such burdens.” Mrs. Gonzalez had once said that to his mother. A long time ago. And he had always remembered that. And now, he understood that better. Maybe Yolie and Mando had carried him and Ileana like sacks of potatoes—sacks of potatoes or sacks of onions that were too heavy for them to carry anymore. Maybe it was time for him and Ileana to carry themselves.

  So he decided. When the rain stopped, they would leave. He told Ileana they were going out. They were going home. They were going to carry themselves to freedom. They were still little, but they were going to emancipate themselves.

  “But it’s raining,” Ileana said.

  “When it stops, we’ll go out. To breathe the fresh air. Won’t that be nice?”

  She nodded. “Okay. Maybe we’ll find Yolie. Maybe she’ll be out breathing the fresh air, too.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. So why don’t we get ready. You take a bath, and I’ll find something nice for you to wear and then we’ll eat breakfast, and when it stops raining, we’ll go out.”

  So Andrés got them ready. He eyed his belongings. He knew they wouldn’t be able to take anything. Just themselves and the clean clothes they were wearing. It didn’t matter—what were belongings? They would take just themselves and the clean clothes Yolie and Mando had bought for them. And he felt like a traitor. And he could feel his face burning.

  They ate breakfast. The last two eggs.

  The rain stopped.

  The house was quiet as a tomb.

  Yolie walked through the front door.

  “Yolie, Yolie, where were you? Where were you?” Ileana couldn’t stop kissing her and hugging her. Kissing her. Hugging her. Laughing and laughing. And Andrés felt as bad as he had ever felt in his life, for wanting to take Ileana away from the sister she adored, for wanting to abandon Yolie, who had worked so hard to keep them together, to keep them and make them a family. And he was ashamed for wanting to live in El Paso just so he could go to school. What did school matter compared to a sister? He studied her, his older sister. She was older, sad and tired like his mother had looked when Mando and his father had been fighting. She looked like she needed to eat and sleep. And so Andrés offered to make a quesadilla with the last of the menonita and the last of the corn tortillas.

  She said okay, but it was a weak okay, and as she ate, she said nothing as she carefully placed the food in her mouth and chewed. She ate and cried at the same time. Her sobs were quiet, but the tears were large and they ran down her cheeks and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. They owned her, now, her tears. Andrés felt worse and worse. “Don’t cry,” he said.

  “They’ve taken Mando,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “The police.”

  “What police? The Mexican police?”

  “No. He’s in jail.”

  “Where?”

  “In El Paso.”

  “What did he do wrong, Yolie?”

  “He was caught—” She stopped. “They made him do it. He didn’t want to do it. But we needed the money. And so he had to. You understand?” She looked at Andrés, and Andrés knew that she needed him to understand—so he nodded.

  “He was arrested at the bridge.”

  Andrés did understand.

  “He’ll go to prison.”

  “For a long time?” Andrés asked.

  “Yes. For a long time.”

  “Can we see him?”

  “No.”

  “So we won’t see him again.”

  “Not for a long time.”

  “Can we write to him?”

  She nodded. “Okay. That will be okay.”

  The kitchen was quiet. “What will we do?”

  Yolie looked at her younger brother. “I don’t know.”

  “We can go back,” Andrés whispered.

  “No.” He could hear the anger in her voice. “No fucking way. If we go back, then it was all for nothing. He’s going to prison for us. For us. So we could be together. And you want to go back?”

  Andrés lowered his head. “I’m sorry. I’ll never say that again.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” she whispered. “I won’t yell at you anymore.”

  Ileana said nothing. And then she started to cry. “I want Mando,” she said. It started to rain again. And it seemed as if the pounding rain would tear off the roof of their house. For an instant, Andrés felt as if there would never again be any light in their house. It would always be dark. And then he thought that no matter how much they’d tried to change this house into something else, it would always be that house they found the first day they moved in. A house with no light. A house with no one in it. A house that smelled of a hundred years of waste and war. A heartless, heartless house.

  “Is that when Yolie sold your typewriter?”

  “Yes. Around that time. I can’t remember exactly. Not exactly. We didn’t go to the market as much. All I know is that we had beans and rice and tortillas and fideo and potatoes. But that was okay. I still like that kind of food.”

  He had a strange look on his face, and for an instant Grace thought he looked like the boy he must’ve been when the rains were pounding his house. She nodded at him, “Well, you know, I can’t go more than three days without eating beans and tortillas.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought that about you,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t seem that Mexican to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. You just don’t.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you mean by Mexican. But, well, I am. And anyway, not all Mexicans grow up on that kind of food—it’s peasant food, you know? It’s what the poor eat—and I guess, when I was growing up, I qualified.”

  “Peasant food,” he said, “You speak a lot of Spanish?”

  “All the time. Me and my sisters.” He nodded. He needed a break. From telling his story. She could tell. That was fine. A break. “You’re not smoking as much.”

  “I’m still smoking a pack a day.”

  “But you’re not smoking here.”

  He shrugged. “I smoke a lot when I leave.” He wanted to tell her that he’d gone to Juárez. In the middle of night. He wanted to tell her. “Do you have family in Mexico?”

  She didn’t mind this small talk. “No. Not anymore. You?”


  “No. Not anymore.” He wouldn’t tell her. That he’d gone. That he’d taken out his fists again. He wouldn’t tell her—not ever. Because now it seemed to matter what she thought.

  The money started to run out, and Andrés could see the look of panic on Yolie’s face. She started smoking a lot more. Xochil came over to visit. She looked sad, and she and Yolie cried. And then they’d smoke. And then they’d cry some more. They sat in the living room and talked and talked and Andrés sat in the kitchen—sat still and listened. They talked about the drugs Mando had been carrying across the border. A mule—they called him that. No one cared about mules when they were caught.

  Xochil said that if Mando turned in the people who’d hired him, then the Feds would cut down the time he’d have to spend in prison. She said something about a deal. But she said Mando wouldn’t turn them in. “They’ll kill him,” Xochil said. And then she was crying again. And Andrés didn’t want to hear any more, so he went into his room and typed a letter to Mrs. Fernandez.

  The next day, his typewriter would be gone. They would have food on the table.

  One day, Xochil came one last time. To say good-bye. She was moving to California. She begged Yolie to go with her. “Leave them with Mrs. Fernandez. Come with me. Things will go good for us there.”

  “No.” Yolie said. Her no didn’t sound strong. A weak no, and Andrés wished that Xochil would stay and stay until Yolie broke down and said yes. But Xochil stopped in the face of a weak no. When Xochil left the house, Andrés ran after her. “Stay with us,” Andrés said, though he didn’t know why he’d said it. Didn’t even know why he’d run after her. She kissed Andrés and held his face between her hands. “Go back,” she whispered. “Go back to El Paso before something else happens. Please, Andy. Please.” He walked with her all the way to the bridge that led back to El Paso. “You can come with me,” she said. “I’ll take you to Mrs. Fernandez.”

  “No,” he said. “I can’t.”