The Shrine at Altamira

by John L'Heureux

  “I want you,” he said.

  It was a voice she did not recognize. She stared into his pale blue eyes and saw what looked like steel, but as she continued to stare, she saw only emptiness. She was frightened at first, and then excited, and then filled with a completely new feeling, a kind of power. She laughed.

  They made love, fierce and hard, like animals in heat, and then they rested, separate again, looking out through the rain at the broken ocean beyond.

  “Let’s get married soon,” he said.

  She smiled, content, and said nothing.

  Russell had begun once more to gnaw at the dry flesh of his little finger, something he hadn’t done in years. The skin was hard and flaky, as if there were only bone beneath it and no flesh at all. He had been doing this since the night she refused him, and he’d had that fit, and then she never refused him again.

  They were going to get married and the girl didn’t even know him, she didn’t even know who he was. He was Russell Whitaker, an Anglo with a nice Anglo name, and that’s all she wanted to know. He had been thinking of this for days and wishing he could do something about it. He resolved to tell her now, tonight.

  They had been to the Old Mill for a double feature—Rocky I and II, or maybe it was III and IV; he couldn’t remember—and then they’d driven in silence to Skyline Lookout, where they were going to park and make love, but she was very quiet tonight, distracted almost, and so they didn’t make love. He was glad not to. They just sat there in silence, her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, his right arm cradling her, and his right hand resting softly against her breast. He wanted to tell her, and now was the perfect time. The pressure had been building in him for weeks—to tell her, to come out with it—as if there were another person inside him who wanted to get out. He decided he would do it now, he would do it now, he would do it now, but they continued to sit there in silence, until finally she whispered, “What?” and, grateful, overwhelmed with love and trust, he held out before her his left hand. It was pink, deformed, the fingers more like a plastic glove than like flesh and bone.

  She had asked him about it that night at the Halloween Hop, and he had told her it happened when he was just a kid, five or six years old. A bunch of them were playing around a fire and two of the older kids dared him to pour a can of Quik Start on the flames and he did it. The can exploded, turning his hand into a kind of torch, and … well, this is what happened. He had told the same story to the doctor who treated his hand, and he had told it many times over the years since the accident. He told it so well he almost believed it himself.

  But now, for once, he wanted to say the truth and let her know him. He held out his hand so she could see it in all its ugliness—pink, slick, deformed. He turned the words over and over in his mind—My father did this—but no words came out, and before he could force them out, she lifted the hand to her lips and kissed it. He sucked in his breath, he choked, and she turned the hand over and kissed the hard smooth palm.

  He wanted to crush her into his body, he wanted to enter her and fill her full of him until they were only one person, he wanted … but what did he want?

  She placed his deformed hand between her breasts and held it there. She smiled at him.

  He could never tell her now.

  “We have to talk about the wedding,” Ana Luisa said, looking up from her ironing. “We’ve got to make preparations.”

  “I’m doing my homework,” Maria said. “On Sunday we’ll talk about it.”

  “If you had spent every night doing homework … ,” Ana Luisa said, and left the thought suspended.

  Maria made a show of not listening.

  She and Russell were getting married on Saturday, at City Hall, so her Sunday talk with her mother would never have to take place. She felt bad about excluding her mother, but what could she do? The woman simply wasn’t reasonable, and Maria was damned if she was going to have a Catholic wedding: going to the priest for instructions, making her confession, and then the Mexican fiesta with bridesmaids and pink dresses and tuxedos and everybody drunk. And for what? To prove she had a man and was not going to college and would never get out of this place? To prove she was a good Mexican girl? Fuck it all. She was going to get married at City Hall on Saturday, honeymoon until Sunday night, and go to school on Monday morning. Marriage was not the end of her life; it was a stop on the way. Her mother would just have to get used to that.

  “A nice white dress,” Ana Luisa said, “with the bridesmaids all in pink. Or in different colors each one, whatever you like.”

  “Mama!”

  “I’m just thinking ahead,” she said, deftly maneuvering the iron under and over the ruffles of Maria’s blouse. “We’ll talk about it Sunday. Muy bien”

  They were happy. They walked along the beach hand in hand, an innocent young couple in love. They had been married the day before, they would be together now forever and ever, they would never be apart.

  Mr. and Mrs. Russell Whitaker.

  There was nothing more that either of them wanted. They had each other. They had everything.

  They were married and in love. They were happy.

  They were living in sin, Ana Luisa thought, but they were so happy and so adorable, who could say it was wrong? They came over every evening for dinner, and afterward as they watched television—she in her chair, Maria and Russell on the couch—she spent more time looking at them than at the TV. They were so cute. Maria was in her third month and hadn’t begun to show yet, but she had filled out a little in the face, and her breasts were larger, and she had that look some women get when they’re pregnant, as if they’re concealing some wonderful secret. And, for sure, Maria had a secret—she hadn’t yet told Russell about the baby. What was she waiting for? Russell would be glad to be a father; he’d like it. Some men did, and anybody could see Russell was manly without being macho like a fool. He’d be gentle with a baby. She looked over at him, sitting there with an arm around Maria’s shoulder, her head nestled against his cheek. Such a cute picture. Russell was big, six feet at least, and maybe two hundred pounds. Even with that burned left hand, he would know how to please a woman, she said to herself, and for a moment she could feel his weight on top of her. What an idea! What a whore she was! No wonder her daughter had married outside the Church. No wonder they were living in sin. She made a tiny sign of the cross and forced herself to concentrate on the TV.

  Maria nudged Russell in the ribs. Her mother had just made the sign of the cross, furtively, which meant she must be thinking about them again. Living in sin. Her mother was old school; what could you do? Maria herself felt free of all that: free of the Church and its rules and superstitions, free of her mother’s old-fashioned ideas, and free of this house and this neighborhood and of being Mexican. Hispanic, they called it now, but it meant the same thing—second class. She and Russell had their own place, a trailer, but at least it was a home of their own. She carried a key to her old house, a key to her new one, and a key to their car, a three-year-old Ford, not a big old junker like her mother’s. Some mornings she dropped Russell off at his job and then drove the car to school, like a working woman, only different. At school she was now Maria Whitaker. She was practically an Anglo herself. And she was going to have a baby. The baby would make a big difference in their lives, so she had decided not to tell Russell until she had to. He was in love with her, but she wasn’t sure how much. He wasn’t ready to hear about any baby yet. She shifted closer to him on the couch. She put her hand on his lap, palm up, and he put his left hand in hers. She could feel his dick move the tiniest bit beneath the back of her hand. She pressed down a little and moved her hand forward and then back. At once she could feel him begin to get hard. She giggled, and he crossed his legs, moving her hand away, embarrassed in front of Ana Luisa. They all continued to stare at the screen. So far as she was concerned, Maria thought, life could go on like this forever. She loved him, and he loved her more and more—he acted silly sometimes just to make her
laugh—and the other things, like college and a good job and everything else, didn’t seem to matter anymore. Because in a way she had escaped already. At school they all envied her. And she had begun to like the idea of being a mother. She rubbed the tough pink skin of his hand with her own perfect fingers, and she sighed. Mrs. Russell Whitaker.

  Russell leaned harder against Maria so she would feel his weight and know he was there beside her. He was not going to look at her until the next commercial. He rationed his looks, because each of them mattered and because what he saw in her eyes allowed him to get through the boredom of his day. Standing on a roof or a scaffolding or a ladder—always balanced somewhere, half expecting to fall—he would feel like tossing his brush to the ground and taking off, but instead he would turn away from the paint, take a deep breath, and think of her. In a minute he was able to go on. He hated painting, he hated the smell of the stuff, but at the end of the day he would have Maria, and then he could be happy. He had never been in love before. He’d had sex, once, in his sophomore year of high school, with a girl who wanted to feel his hand in the dark, and though she said the sex was fantastic, he had only felt bad. At her insistence, they tried it again to see if the second time might be better. But he hadn’t felt anything for her either time. “Doesn’t it just feel good?” she asked, and he didn’t know what she meant. Sex was not the same as love, he knew that much, and he had never loved anybody. He had never even liked anybody. Could that be true? Even before the accident to his hand? He could remember only Billy Muir, with his high voice and his little short pants that were always too small for him. They had played together every day. But after Russell’s accident, Billy was never allowed to play with him again, though he came over once to borrow a sack of marbles—or were they Indian beads?—and never gave them back. Sitting here watching television with his wife and his mother-in-law, Russell ached for the little boy he had been. It was cruel to do that to a child, isolate him, refuse to let your children play with him. It was punishing the victim a second time. Because of course they must have realized it was not an accident, that his father had simply grabbed his hand and held it to the flames. Everybody knew his father was a drunk. Russell felt the anger building in him, the taste of rust in his mouth, despair, and despite himself he turned to look at Maria, and she looked back, and he was saved.

  He saw in her eyes that he was loved and he did not, finally, have to die.

  At lunch hour Maria and Michelle walked down to the practice field where they could sit on the bleachers and talk in private. Everybody wanted to be Maria’s friend now that she was pregnant, but she remained faithful to Michelle and Jennifer, who had been her friends since grammar school. Jennifer had cheerleading practice during lunch, which was nice, because it gave Maria a chance to talk about everything twice.

  “Are you still not throwing up?” Michelle asked. “By now you should be throwing up all the time.”

  “I never throw up,” Maria said.

  “Do you have pains at least? You should feel nauseous and everything.”

  “I feel fine. I haven’t had morning sickness once.”

  “I don’t see how you can be in your third month and not have morning sickness,” Michelle said. “My sister just had a kid, and for the first three months she threw up all the time. She was like a barf machine. She’d get up in the morning and … oooops, up it came. It was like a fountain or something. I’d hear her in the bathroom, and I’d think, Jesus, I’m never gonna have a kid. Barf city.”

  “Do you mind, Michelle? Like I’m eating?”

  “That’s another thing. You’re supposed to throw up before meals all the time. No shit. What does your doctor say? Who do you go to anyway? Is it a man or a woman?”

  “Can we stop talking about this? Please?”

  “Sorry. Touchy, touchy. You are in your third month.”

  Maria said nothing for a while, and then she said, “I haven’t seen a doctor.”

  Michelle looked at her, and looked away, and then looked back. “Are you serious? You mean you went just by the home test kit?” She waited. “You did, didn’t you. You just used the home test kit. Maybe you didn’t do it right. You know?” She drew in her breath sharply. “My God, maybe you aren’t pregnant at all.”

  Maria folded the plastic wrap around her half-eaten sandwich and stuffed it back into the bag. She stood up and brushed crumbs off her skirt.

  “You should see a doctor right away, Maria. Or at least the school nurse.” She put her hand on Maria’s arm. “Maybe you married him when you didn’t even have to.”

  Maria pulled her arm away and started up the hill toward school.

  “Well, you don’t have to be mad at me,” Michelle said, following behind.

  “Leave me alone,” Maria said.

  “Well, it’s insane to get married because you’re pregnant when you aren’t even sure about it.”

  Maria rounded on her. “I married him because I love him, and I would’ve married him even if I wasn’t pregnant, but I am pregnant, so just leave me alone.” She turned away from Michelle. “The truth is you’re just jealous.”

  She continued on up the hill. She was fed up with high school kids. Those idiots. Those assholes.

  Russell and Maria were on their way to Ana Luisa’s for dinner. Two days earlier Maria had gotten the doctor’s report: she was not pregnant, nor had there ever been any reason to think she was. It had taken her this long to accept the fact.

  “Russell?” she said, putting her hand on his leg.

  He put his hand on hers and squeezed it. For some reason, she had been very affectionate these last two days. She had said little, but she was all over him and he liked it.

  “I’m not pregnant,” she said. “I’m not going to have a baby.”

  “Good,” he said, and looked at her. “That’s a relief.”

  She took her hand off his leg and shifted away from him on the front seat.

  He began to whistle.

  When they arrived, Ana Luisa took one look at them and concluded that the honeymoon was over. Marriage, she thought, it’s just another form of hell.

  Russell and Bog were painting a seven-room pool house in Atherton, and the super had left to check on another job, so they sat down by the pool and Bog broke out the Camels. Russell shook his head, no.

  “This is the life,” Bog said, getting comfortable in the chaise longue. The pool had a black bottom that made the water look like ink. “Look at that water.”

  Russell had been looking at the water. Since he first saw it this morning he had been thinking how good it would be to walk down those steps into the water and never come up again.

  “So how’s married life?” Bog said. “Free nooky all the time … I envy you. I’ll tell you, though, you don’t look like you’re getting much. You look like you’re getting shit.”

  Russell gave him a sour look. “What do you know about marriage, Bog? What do you know about life? Jesus.”

  For the past week Maria had scarcely spoken to him. When he asked her why, she would say, “Figure it out,” or “Go to hell,” or “You make me sick.” He was waiting for her to come around and tell him what was the matter, what he had done wrong, but he was tired of waiting and he wanted to make something happen. He had felt the rage building in him all week.

  “So I guess you’re not getting any,” Bog said, and flipped his lighted cigarette into the black water.

  At once Russell was out of his chair and leaning over Bog. He grabbed him by the shirtfront and, with one powerful yank, got him up out of the chaise longue and onto his feet. Bog wavered a little, and Russell pitched him headlong into the water. There was a splash, and then Bog surfaced, sputtering. “What’re you, crazy?” he shouted. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  Russell stepped to the tile border of the pool and said quietly, “Don’t throw cigarettes in the water.”

  Bog had one hand up, ready to hoist himself out of the water, but Russell loomed over him still. Bog put
his other hand up, waiting. Russell did not move. “What?” Bog said. Russell pressed his foot gently against the top of Bog’s head. He held it there, pressing harder. Then harder. Bog ducked away and, carefully, moved back in the water. He looked up at him. He saw that Russell’s eyes were dead and his face had no expression at all. He looked very, very dangerous.

  “Let me out of here,” Bog said.

  There was a long silence while Russell stood above him, looking, and then he said, “I get what I need, Bog. Don’t you worry about me.”

  Maria hadn’t spoken to Russell for a week. But for the next week she worked hard at trying to cheer him up, win him over, make him laugh a little. She had forgotten how much fun it was to try and please him. Besides, she needed him if she was going to get pregnant. As the days passed she discovered once again that Russell was what she wanted and that pursuing him was fun. It was fun and it was easy.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m going to learn to cook. Then we won’t have to go to Mama’s all the time.”

  They were sitting in McDonald’s, having the Big Mac Combo. She put down her Big Mac and started to wipe her fingers on her napkin, but instead she reached over and put a dot of ketchup on the tip of Russell’s nose.

  “What do you think?” she said.

  Russell stuck his tongue out, trying to get the ketchup, and he crossed his eyes and lowered his head to the table. Maria laughed, delighted. He slipped low in the booth until only his head showed, and finally his head disappeared and he was under the table. Maria giggled, and then she laughed, and then she let out a little shout of surprise as his head burrowed between her legs. She pushed him away, laughing, and in a moment he came up from beneath the table and was sitting beside her. “Disgusting,” someone said, but Russell and Maria ignored whoever it was and went on snuggling in the booth. Together they ate her Big Mac and then they ate his. She had forgotten how good their good times were.

  Afterward, in the car, Maria said, “I’ve got this Sunset cookbook and they explain everything? With pictures of what it’s supposed to look like, you know, when it’s halfway done and then when it’s all done? Chicken in a white sauce and coq au vin. Flank steak. Everything. It looks like anybody could do it. So what do you think?”