“See how easy it is?” he asked. Only his name never changed.
It was common for Rafa to forget the new name he was given. “You’ll always just be conejito,” Rosalina told him.
“Try not to blink so much,” the Explorer instructed. “Try not to do things like cough, sneeze, shift, sigh audibly. The trick is to make people wonder if you’re real.”
On the plaza, when tourist season was at its height, the basket splayed in front of them, they would make enough to last for months. The Explorer, nearby on a bench, watching, would later say, “What a beautiful display. What a masterpiece.” The mother, beaming. “Look at her, everyone. Unmistakably beautiful. Rare and wonderful.” Which is to say she was valuable, he’d made her so.
Twelve
Shortly after the one-year anniversary of the Explorer’s arrival, the couple came to visit, Señor and Señora Soto. They were friends of the Explorer’s, or rather, they were people he knew, which to him was the same thing. On the evening they were expected, he stood at the counter chopping celery, explaining who they were. He tried to remember from the bar in Los Angeles what it was they’d told him. Rosalinda perched on her stool. Rufina sat at the table peeling the onion the Explorer would chop next. Rafa was on his back, in the ditch next to the road, willing snakes to cross over his legs, thinking about the Explorer and how one day he would beat him at being a man.
“Can you imagine the electricity? They found each other on the corner of Huerfanos and Banderas in downtown Santiago and ate each other raw for days,” the Explorer began. “After all, they’re Chileans.” He paused, considering what parts of their story to share. What the Explorer did not disclose was they were Chileans whose friends had been disappearing. Their apartments, their pets, their cars—sometimes still left running, parked along the street—anticipated their return at any moment. Nor did he disclose that they were coming because they were afraid for their lives, that they were running. From what Rosalinda would not tell him, he’d gathered her immigration experience was much different. She’d not been able to buy an airplane ticket, then upon arriving in the States, purchase a car which she could drive from city to city until she found something that might suit her. From what Rosalinda would not tell him, he’d gathered she had to crawl her way out and that what she’d endured while doing so left her unable to state simply where her village was, what was the closest city, what the country was called, exactly, after all, she’d once said all these things in her language, which refused to be rerouted to Spanish, to English.
On the record player, Amália Rodrigues. The Explorer switched from the celery to peeling hard-boiled eggs. He was making egg salad for dinner. “Oh, how I wish I were Portuguese,” he sang, interrupting the start of his own story. The apron he wore, covered in eggplants, hid his shorts. The material had been on sale. Rosalinda had made it for him. It looked like he was wearing a dress. Somehow this amusement made him seem less tall, less white. She appreciated this, too.
The Explorer considered Rosalinda’s lacking information as if it were a secret. This made more sense to him, as he had his. His secret was this: He was from the south, from the hills of North Carolina. His ancestors from Scotland or Ireland or England. But with Rosalinda, and the children, he could pretend himself to be so much more. He did not have an accent, that troublesome southern twang. And because he had read so many library books, and had listened to the programs on the radio, and knew all the worldly, cultured things that worldly, cultured people knew, he liked to imagine himself altogether different. While he did not actually travel abroad, he mined his international acquaintances for all the details he needed to create an alternate reality where he was a man who traveled the world. He was a man of ideas, who learned to speak in a variety of languages. He was far from where he originated, his mother in her housecoat with drugstore wine on the davenport, his father a hired hand in someone else’s field. All of his towheaded brothers and sisters like used tin cans tied to the tailpipe of a car, bouncing off one another, making as much noise as they could. He was different. He was an artist, and his most impressive creation was his own identity.
The Explorer turned up the volume on the record player. It was wailing and it inspired Rafa to return to the house, to the kitchen table. Rufina sang along. It was the screaming of it that thrilled her.
The Explorer winked at Rufina. Did he wink at Rufina? He meant not to wink at her. She was so easy to play with, to tease, to flirt with. Her sweetness in perfect measure to her wilding. The surprise of her at any moment. He’d been drinking since ten that morning, since last year, since he was thirteen. Big, tart wines that turned him into a raft of flesh, carried him out and away. Quite often he found himself to be in deep waters with no land in sight. When he was in this state, it was as if he were a boy. Searching. Searching to find his mother and tell her how pretty she was. Searching for his mother, who would share with him from her cup. She is drunk. He is drunk. She is happy. He is happy. He is loved.
Rufina handed him the onion and the Explorer was back in the kitchen with Rosalinda, Rafa, and Rufina. Singing at full volume, he placed a glass bowl of chocolate pudding into the top shelf of the refrigerator. At the door, a woman appeared. Her skin was opal, and beneath, on her chest where her lace blouse was cut away, a network of veins made visible.
“Buen dia,” she said, blushing, blotches of uneven crimson marking her face, multiple strands of yellow beads wound around her neck. Tall and flat, she was void of curves from any angle. Her hair was pale and flat, too, as if the whole of her were run through an industrial-sized pressing iron. Her bangs plastered to her forehead, two tight braids, pulled into a twisted crown. Rufina couldn’t look away. Blanca Soto. The husband behind her was opposite in appearance, dark and short and round, with bulging black eyes and loops of tight black curls springing from his head. Paulo Soto.
“These are my friends,” the Explorer said, pointing to the husband and wife as if convincing everyone in the room, including himself.
“Children!” the couple seemed to say in unison. “Children!”
“You didn’t mention there were children!” Blanca said.
“Hello, children,” Paulo said. “Beauties,” he whispered to himself, his eyes moist.
“Tell us your names,” Blanca said, kneeling on the floor.
Rafa and Rufina responded quietly from the opposite side of the kitchen where they’d huddled next to the fridge in an attempt to grab the pudding when the Explorer took swigs from his wine.
“Please, come closer,” Blanca said. She held out her hands. “Just look at you, Rufina. Are you the youngest?”
Rufina nodded.
Blanca embraced her as soon as she was close enough. It was a move that Rufina wasn’t sure how to engage. As she considered her options, she felt Blanca’s heartbeat, the skin on her arms, her neck, her face, cool. She didn’t know what it was to have an aunt, but she imagined this might be it. She expected Blanca to release her but instead, Blanca continued to hold her. What the couple knew but would not speak: three weeks prior, in Santiago, Paulo’s pregnant cousin and her husband had disappeared. It would have been the first child on either side of the family. Since then, they wanted to hold every child they saw, but that, of course, had not been possible. At last, in this moment, this house, there was Rafa. There was Rufina.
“Beautiful, beautiful girl,” she said. “How lucky is your mother to have you.”
And in that moment, Rufina felt Blanca’s words, it was a new idea—to be beautiful, for Rosalinda to be lucky because of her.
Paulo wiped his eyes. Turning to Rafa, he said, “Compadre, you know how to play the guitar?”
Rafa shook his head. “Never touched one,” he said.
“I just happen to have a guitar in the car that would love to be played.” He extended his arms, which was an invitation for Rafa to climb into them.
Rafa hesitated, looked at his mother, stepped one set of toes and then the other set closer to Paulo.
“I’ll teach you a song. Yeah? I’ll teach you the best song I know.” It was obvious to everyone how hard Blanca and Paulo were trying, and it was also excused. Their longing clearly felt by all.
Rafa got close enough for Paulo to lift him onto his back. “Let’s see what else we can find out there in that car. Some fun stuff, compadre, I’ll tell you that. You just wait.”
Rafa was not sure what to make of riding on this man’s back. He was not a large man. Nowhere near the size of the Explorer, to whom Rafa had never been this close. But he was strong, and he cried, and he giggled, and he looked at Rafa like he was the prince soon to inherit the throne.
Dinner was served on sandwiches without crusts along with sliced golden beets and warm, soft cheese. Rosalinda, Rafa, and Rufina watched as the Explorer and the Sotos drank bottle after bottle of wine that the couple seemed to have stored, among many other belongings, in the trunk of their car. Blanca made every attempt to express to Rosalinda how perfect her daughter was, to which Rosalinda responded by taking another drag from her cigarette. Which is not to say she did not love her daughter, because she did, but she loved her differently.
Later that evening, they all agreed to take a walk. Rufina donned her animal mask. It was a badger, or a squirrel, or a rat. Blanca and Paulo took turns wearing it, then placed it back on Rufina’s face. They growled and screeched and squealed together. Rufina’s feet did not touch the ground, Blanca and Paulo carrying her between them. Rosalinda drifted behind, pretending to be distracted by the hollyhocks and the lizards shooting across the road. The couple’s easy nature and full expression of adoration gave Rosalinda a terrible headache.
Rafa investigated the wife, her thin bleached hair, the shadows under her eyes, her thin pale lips, the plank of her body—she didn’t even look like she could chew meat let alone travel across continents. He curled up against his mother. Put his nose against her chest, tucked it under her arm, inhaled.
Rosalinda could hear Rufina’s voice, how loud it was, the way it carried. Rufina’s voice upset her. When she was upset, she became panicked. When panicked, the contours of a face appeared. Soon there were boots marching, voices shouting, the shrill slicing of screams. The explosion of blood in her veins.
“Quiet!” she shouted.
Up the road, Rufina heard her mother and knew it was meant for her. She ignored it, howling as loud as she could.
“Quiet!” Rosalinda shouted again.
Rafa ran up ahead to carry her message.
The wind in the trees gained momentum. Lightning streaked the sky, and soon thereafter, the thunder. Blanca and Paulo joined in, increasing the volume of animal voices.
“Now monkeys!” Blanca said.
“Now wolves!” Paulo said.
“Now cheetahs!” Rufina said, and they rivaled the noise of the descending storm while all around the insects rattled and trilled as if they, too, were frantic with forgetting.
“Quiet!” Rosalinda tried one last time although no one could hear her.
“You’re being too loud,” Rafa told Rufina and the Sotos. “You’re hurting her.”
“How can that be?” Paulo said.
Rufina had already begun deflating at the notion of hurting her mother. “She hurts in ways we can’t understand. That’s what she tells us,” Rufina explained to the Sotos.
“You always have to make it worse,” Rafa said.
“Does she tell you the stories of how she came to hurt?” Blanca said, kneeling on the pavement to look Rufina in the eyes.
Rufina exchanged a look with Rafa.
“No,” he said. “There’s nothing left to remember.”
“She gets dizzy. Then she screams. Next, she’ll cry and mumble those words, lock herself in her room,” Rufina said. “That just what she does.”
“When she hurts?” Blanca said.
“All the time,” Rufina said.
“Rufina!” Rafa said. “You’re not helping. She doesn’t want us—We just need to comfort her better.”
Another torment of thunder, again the streaks of lightning. It was nearly dark. The Explorer, far ahead, was not cognizant of the distance his long stride had taken him. He gripped his wineglass, which he’d carried with him, as a new understanding threatened to take root in him. In that moment, he began to feel how it did not matter how many books he’d read, or films he’d seen, or languages he’d taught himself, or how much he’d struggled to contain the world in his installation art. The cells in his body would never comprehend what it meant to be violated by his own country, to have to give it up entirely, to never once return to it. He drank from his glass, a kind of gulping like he did as a boy.
Fifty feet behind him, Rafa attempted to explain to the couple, “Really bad stuff happened to her. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Do you understand?” Paulo said.
“No one can understand,” Rufina said. “That’s what she tells us.”
“I’m walking her back,” Rafa said, changing direction. Rosalinda had stopped and was staring at her tracks on the road. As he approached his mother, he held out his hand for her to hold.
It seemed as though hardly any time had passed before it started to rain. Large, heavy drops with considerable pauses in between, then the downpour. They all were drenched by the time they reached the house. The power had gone out and Rafa continued holding his mother’s hand in the dark. Blanca held Rufina while Paulo flicked at Rosalinda’s lighter as he searched for the candles. By the time the Explorer returned, the house was glowing as if it were a lantern.
“She can’t stand this darkness,” the Explorer said as he picked up Rosalinda. “Not when she can’t control it.” He took her to her bedroom. They all heard the door shut.
“How about some dry clothes?” Blanca asked the children. “As fast as you can, and when you’re done come back to the kitchen and we’ll melt chocolate to drink. How’s that?”
Rafa was back first without a shirt and wearing a pair of sweatpants that were too short. His damp hair spiked in all directions. Rufina wore one of her performance dresses, which received applause from the Sotos. Blanca brushed Rufina’s hair and braided it while Paulo melted chocolate on the stove. They topped it with cream and sipped it while he sang for them. “Return. Never again, return. Con todo mi anhelo. Con todo mi vida. Vuelvo. No volver.”
Rosalinda stayed in her room for the week. She smoked her cigarettes, the incense lit. Her bed, a sanctuary. The Explorer served her food on trays. The Sotos took Rafa and Rufina for long drives in the country, Blanca telling them, “Once upon a time there was a little boy and a little girl who lived in a canyon with their beautiful mother, who was muy afligida . . .” And as they went for Frito pies and ice cream, cheeseburgers and sopapillas, Blanca repeated and continued her telling. “Both the little boy and the little girl were magic, decorating the mother with their constant love. They were special children, loyal to their mother and her pain, only wanting to help her, the boy with his strong arms and heart, his laughter, the girl with her strong spirit and her beauty, her gift of casting spells. But what the little boy and little girl did not know, what they could not imagine . . .” And as they went to the movies in the theater downtown, they sat on Blanca’s and Paulo’s laps with their hands in popcorn, snuggled like all girls and boys should be. Then, the strolling through streets playing “I spy,” until every inch of Ciudad de Tres Hermanas had been touched by their eyes. Blanca continued her telling as if it were a chant that might protect them long after she had gone—“The mother could not care for them like they cared for her. And one day they would have to choose to stay by her side, or turn away from her, and follow their own magic into unknown lands and onto adventures of their own where monsters and angels alike waited . . .” Paulo never spoke while Blanca doused them with this story. After all, he was counting down the days until they would return to Chile and be reunited. Even though that day would never come. Still, he stayed quiet, didn’t embellish it in ways it could have been. Inste
ad, he listened, too, as Blanca got to the end of her tale and began again. He knew what she was going for: presenting a story to the children where they were at the center, not the mother, would perhaps awaken their own life’s possibilities. That his wife was doing this made him love her even more. And at the end of the last telling she would ever give, Paulo asked them, “What will happen on your adventure?” To which Rafa replied that he’d turn the mother into a lizard and keep her in his pocket as he sailed all the seas there were. While Rufina said that in her adventure, “The sun will fall in love with me and we will fly away together.”
On the evening Rosalinda finally emerged from her room, light drained from the sky, something ordinary had happened, which is to say none of them could undo it, which is to say the darkness would soon do what only it knew how to do, cover and conceal, while the stars made their attempt to poke holes.
Meanwhile, Blanca and Paulo stood at the end of the drive arguing about the mother. Paulo called her a tragedy. Blanca called her misunderstood. They continued to argue as they got in their car and drove away, having not said good-bye to anyone. Something they couldn’t bring themselves to do.
Meanwhile, Rufina brushed her hair, twirling in her room, twirling and twirling, fueled by a joy she’d never felt like this. It was years before the baby came to be as Rufina imagined a mother’s love, a father’s love, imagined an entire family with her at the center as she twirled and twirled remembering Paulo’s song, remembering Blanca’s hands in her hair, remembering the sweets on her tongue, considering herself as Blanca insisted, as the thing that brought luck to others. The story Blanca told her falling deep into her being, not unlike a seed.
Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer Page 12